India’s public sector lenders have often come under fire for their lack of customer service. Recently, a State Bank of India (SBI) branch came under scrutiny after a customer took a photograph of the entire staff on lunch break.
The incident occurred on May 30th, when CA Lalit Solanki visited an SBI branch and found the entire staff absent. He took a photograph of the empty branch and posted it on Twitter, along with the caption “It was 3 PM, and the whole staff was on lunch. Irony, on one side #SBI says we don’t have any lunch break and the whole staff was on lunch collectively. Dear @TheOfficialSBI, even the world can get changed completely but your services can’t.”
The tweet quickly went viral, with over 398k views and 6.3k likes. SBI responded to the tweet by expressing regret for the inconvenience caused and asking Solanki to delete the tweet. However, Solanki did not remove the tweet, and SBI released a series of tweets stating that no specific timings have been fixed for the lunch time of staff members in our Branches.
The incident has sparked a debate about customer service in public sector banks. Many customers have complained about long wait times and poor service at SBI branches. However, SBI has defended its staff, stating that they are committed to providing quality customer service.
The incident is a reminder that customer service is a key factor in the success of any business. Banks that are able to provide excellent customer service will be more likely to attract and retain customers.
Here are some of the comments from other netizens:
“Kindly clarify what is the lunch timing of any bank branch..” – Prince Shaw
“How many lunch breaks do you employees take in a day? Is it 1 or 3 or more? Please clarify” – Larid Khan
“It clearly seems like it was one staggered lunch. Hope they all enjoyed a nice siesta also.” – Ashish Krupakar
“Every staff member goes for lunch at the same time, how come all staff disappear. It’s not security then (sic) No one in bank? @RBI” – Narendra Rawat
“Esteemed customer. Such a joke.” – CA.Abhijit Anand
“You have allowed time from 1-3 in a staggered manner, now your employees take 2 hrs lunch breaks” “No specific timings means why all of the staff’s went for lunch ?? If no one in branch how do you provide continuous service,” – Gowtham Saran Duraisamy
“Are you a PO writing these tweets?” – Bhavesh mockingly
