Complaint Redressal System of Banks: Comparison of Customers and Bankers Perception

The paper attempts to analyze and compare customers’ and bankers perception and behaviour towards complaint redressal system of banks. The study was conducted in three most populated districts (Amritsar, Ludhiana and Jalandhar) of Punjab, India. From each district 3 public (SBI, PNB and Punjab and Sind Bank) and 3 private sector banks (HDFC Bank, Axis Bank and ICICI Bank) having maximum number of branches were chosen. From each bank, one branch operating in rural and one in urban area was selected randomly. Hence, a total of 36 branches were contacted. From each branch 20 customers and 2-3 officers/managers were surveyed through a structured and non disguised questionnaire based on complaint redressal system of banks namely Banking Ombudsman. Thus, survey was administered on 720 customers (36*20=720) and 72 bankers (36*2=72). Findings highlighted that very few customers were aware about customer complaint redressal system. Banks do not provide much information about complaint redressal system resulting in most of the customers not complaining about the problems faced by them. Hence, a gap was found between problems faced by the customers and complaints received by the bankers.