By Horatio
The little things in life make a huge difference. I am continually amazed by the number of times I find myself saying, “We must do better.” This is the second time I feel moved to comment on poor customer service at CIBC/FirstCaribbean.
As they continue on their path towards sale, merger, or asset transfer with Bank of SVG, they continue to lay off staff. No more senior citizens line. A few weeks ago, the bank provided about five chairs in the lobby for the seniors to sit while awaiting service. Now the number of chairs is down to two some days. It was a shame to see two senior citizens trying to decide who needed the available chair more. All this while the rest of us stood in line for two hours to be served by one of two customer service representatives. Why does it take this long to be served? One of my observations is that most people are doing between two and three transactions on average so effectively, the line is at least twice as long as it appears. Another reason is that the bank no longer offers its commercial clients a separate window to make daily deposits or get change. Yes, they are in the same line as individual non-commercial clients.
Then there are the government offices. Where do I start? Ok, today, I will limit my comments to the passport office. Did you know that you cannot just stop by the office and pick up a form without paying the stamp duties? So, when filling out this form, there is no room for error because if you do and have to start over, your $15 stamps are now affixed to a form that must be discarded. I have a simple question: why do we not collect the stamp fees after completing the form and then place the stamps on it? When you turn in the form and a copy of your birth certificate (you must bring the original for someone to see it), you must bring the expired passport and another government-issued photo ID. All reasonable requests. This is the kicker: after reviewing the documents, the immigration officer sends you off to make copies of your photo ID and four pages of your old passport. It’s not about the $3.25 for copying the documents, it’s the inefficiency that gets me. I offered to scan the four pages and the ID and transmit them to the office electronically. No, that’s not an option. Had the person told me this when I picked up and paid for the form, I could have made those copies before returning to the office. A more fundamental question for me is, why not make copies of the documents you need and include that in the fees? What does the $215 stamp and fee cover? Why not make it $225 and make all the copies of whatever documents you need in the office?
In this modern day, I cannot understand why this form is not available electronically. I am not suggesting we be allowed to fill out the form electronically (although that would be great). Just be available for me to print out on demand. Now, regarding the overkill on “security,” please help me. I am required to get a lawyer or a Justice of the Peace to sign my application stating that they have personally known me for many years. Why? They are also required to sign my current photographs and seal the document (under the risk of a fine if found guilty of falsifying a legal document). So why is a fourth identifying document needed, like a National ID card or driver’s license? Another thing, why do we call it a National ID Card? Call it by its functional name, a “Voter Registration Card.”
Now let me be clear. The issues I am pointing out here are not life-threatening or National Security failures. It highlights our inefficiency and our lack of concern for the level of customer service we provide. This was not a problem for me, but let’s think about someone in a wheelchair or who has difficulty climbing up and down two flight of stairs.
All offices frequented by the general public should be on the ground floor, or a room should be provided on the ground floor for the appropriate business transactions to be completed. We must do better.