How many saudi’s does it take to make a deposit?

I really wish I did not have to write this piece, however, my experience yesterday at the bank left me wanting to shout a thousand things to the manager. My apologies in advanced for my lack of humor in the title, but it got your attention right?

Yesterday after finishing classes, I had ran off to the bank to pay for my mother’s exit/re-entry visa at the ATM. A very convient service provided by the government. Unfortunately, the ATM refused to accept any cash I put its way, very typical of the ATMs here in the Kingdom. In the Kingdom, the cash you deposit is counted on the spot and added to your balance. Its a more foolproof method compared to back home, that is, when it does accepts your cash. In America, you deposit the cash in an envelope, tell the ATM how much you have in the envelope, and without counting the ATM adds the total to your balance. The envelope is later counted and if there is an error, a fee is assessed.

After countless tries, I decided to deposit the cash inside the branch. How hard can it be? On an average business day, I can walk in and out of a bank in America within 10 minutes or less, and thats in the rare case I couldn't conduct my business via ATM. Once inside, I grab a deposit slip but cannot find a pen anywhere in sight, so I walk to customer service desk to grab a number and pen. As I stand there for a good five minutes, the employee is on his mobile chatting about a game he saw the other day. When he finally takes notice, he respond to me as if I had disrupted his conversation. He hastily hands me a number and returns to his phone call, ignoring my request for a pen. I mutter something about poor service and help myself to an empty employee's desk for a pen. 

My number was 28, and the serving number was 10. Not bad, I am thinking to myself, I’ll be out of here in no time. Impressively, there are 5 tellers working today behind the counter. Usually, you have an average of 2 working per anytime during the day. Makes you wonder why they even have 5 slots to service their customers. While waiting I decided to finish a phone call that ended up lasting the whole time I spent in the bank, about an hour or more. Even though there were 5 working tellers, only two were taking customers at a time. Even when that customer finished, they would not call up the next customer for another 5 maybe 10 minutes!!

Taking a closer look behing the glass I was shocked to find that the tellers were on their phones messaging friends, joking with each other, and enjoying tea while their customers just sat there! They guy next to me actually fell asleep and almost slipped out of his chair. If you have noticed, I did not mention a specific bank. The reason is this happens in almost any bank in Saudi Arabia.

The fundamental problem are three, there is no sense of customer service, lack of respect to customers, and no regulation of the employees. I am sure this is not the case everywhere. However, my experiences with banks in the Kingdom have not been positive. I hope this article raises awareness of the problem and for us the society to find a solution. Whether it be finding the faults in ourselves or standing up to the visible mistakes.

Related Posts via Categories

• Planning on opening a business in Saudi? Think again.
• Stupid quote of the week: “Women driving spurs premarital sex”
• Keep it clean people!
• When Saudi Women Vote …