Betterment in Customer Service Indicating Improvement in Work Culture-A Case Study of United Bank of India (UBI)

Abstract

With the initiation of the process of liberalization and reform of the financial sector, banking in India has undergone significant changes. The banking sector had to adapt rapid and radical changes. The environment became more challenging for Public Sector Banks as a good number of them survived merely by the grace of state protectionism and were administered in extremely inefficient manner which caused them to go to bankruptcies quite often. The employees of these banks with secured employment under the shield of all powerful unions were blissfully indifferent towards quality of performance particularly customer service and profitability of the bank. In face of the increasing competition where banking industry as a whole was striving to achieve greater efficiencies in their day-to-day operations, some of the Public Sector Banks actually confronted with existential crisis. The Public Sector bank under study - United Bank of India (UBI) was declared by 1999 as the one among ― the weakest in all the banks‘‘ by the Verma Committee set up by Reserve Bank of India. There was an urgent need for UBI to transform itself for bare survival and to meet the shifting requirements of the new turbulent environment.This case study narrates the transformation of UBI from one of ― the weakest in all the banks ‘‘ of India to a successful Public Sector Bank capable of providing better customer service which undoubtedly signifies improvement in the bank‘s work culture.