A memorable displeasure

<p>It is often said that one link in a chain can breaks the efforts of its entirety. Sadly, this is not the case for my experience with African Bank - The entirety of your staff broke the entirety of your product, your now completely tarnished name and what little faith I have left in the collective competency of your customer facing workforce.</p> <p>One Month, I spent trying to get my application through with people who cannot assist me, backed by a system/website that doesn't offer solutions or seem to be functional at some stages. Quite frankly, I do not know how you manage to be a profitable entity with such poor service levels - Because the 2078 other reviews on you from sites such as hello-peter, yields a poor and ineffective 2 star rating from 75% (1567) of your clients (and a further 17% [347] of 1 star reviews). From this 2078, roughly 164 clients (who managed to spend their time writing this) gave you a score of average or above. That's 8%. Therefore - statistically - your products, services and efforts amounted to keeping happy some 8% of 2078 people.. That's 2078 people who even bothered to spend a single minute posting their experience somewhere. Perhaps it is better this way, lest a horde of people make known just how poor they have been treated by people who give them a product they pay for (essentially).</p> <p>It brews up a certain taste of guile in one's mouth. The type one gets when a petrol attendant fills up your fuel tank with engine oil or when the absolute chaos in the house of parliament (you know, where educated people allegedly are) is the laughing stock of the planet - because people either choose not to do their job, or have little regard for what they are actually supposed to accomplish - yet receive remuneration for it anyway. In effect, you're paying people to ****-off your client base - Well done! A non-surprising bold move.</p> <p>Having spent +2 hours on calls TO your call-centre, authenticating myself several thousand times (up to the point where I was able to recite the script the agent uses) and receiving nothing for the efforts does leave one with a bitter taste. One that drops me in a pool of thought as to why in my right mind I would EVER consider (or even reconsider) wanting African Bank as a provider, in possession of the ability to have done so at a number of other respective banks/establishments - and probably receiving it in less than the month it took me to get from point A to point B. Having gone through this (twice), I hope I prove myself eligible to explain to you what happened.</p> <p>[Application Attempt 1]<br /> At the beginning of November 2016, I used your web application to apply for a loan which was fairly simple, up to the point where documentation was requested. I probably spent an hour trying to upload scanned copies of everything requested because your web application refused to upload more than one document at any given application attempt. No matter what I tried, it would not accept more than 1 (1 pager) pdf document.</p> <p>[Application Attempt 2]<br /> Dramatically building up the drive to talk to people, I phoned your call-centre and explained the situation. Somewhere I was given a brief apology for the inconvenience and that someone will/might/can look into why the web application does this. I was then informed that I needed to send the documents the system would not accept to ********** - which I did. They did not inform me of any special instructions on what needs to be certified, stamped or coloured in otherwise. I as also told to just wait and be patience because the imaginary being called "the system" would contact me via sms, email or smoke signals to advise me on the status of the application.</p> <p>I later phoned again since a few passed and there was still no reply to the application. Apparently the application had expired and I needed to redo the entire process after being told to "that you just need to wait".<br /> I knew it. We were going this route once again. I told the agent I spoke to that they may pass my details on to the sales team because I was not going to spend more time phoning this bank for a system mishap. She agreed.</p> <p>I was phoned the next morning but was in a meeting (as we all have jobs). No phone call came back - So I phoned your call-centre again. At this point it was apparent that African bank does not have a support call/ticketing system that guided their people to handle customer requests properly, or that they had one that was managed - poorly, or even having one - flooded - by requests from other commoners like me for possibly the exact same reason(s).</p> <p>We re-completed the process but not without constant phone calls to you centre to inquire about the progress as this seems to take about 2-3 weeks from the sound (and speed), and is probably the norm anyway. One needs to bend over backwards, to give you business. Again, bravo!<br /> <br /> (African Bank, you may continue reading from here since your survey page limited me up to this line):<br /> </p> <p>After some more days, I received a phone call telling me that the documents are incomplete. A discussion followed on how I have already sent them several times and that they were going to look into the matter. Like Eskom, Telkom and some other phone companies - nothing came from the discussion.</p> <p>Again, I phoned, to inquire of the matter and I was either put through to people who were constantly on lunch or your phone system dropped the line. Resulting in a less than tasteful experience. <br /> <br /> Finally, without much ado, I phoned through and straight up asked for a manager – after which when put through, I asked for their manager as well, and would have loved to continue up the line until I found someone WILLING to either say, "Yes, African Bank is willing to do business with you" or "No, we do not want to extent a loan to you". It was that simple, a NO would have worked just as well at this stage because I was fed up with this "business process". A manager managed to subdue my attempts to reach a higher level and properly (and timely) assist the application. Sachin Sing, someone at African Bank who was willing and competent assisted the process with ease up to the point where he personally phoned me to tell me that the documents I sent were incomplete.</p> <p>I was told that the bank's requirements for residential address evidence extended far and beyond a letter from the owner of property, their Pretoria Residential Utility bill and ID. No, everything short of my forehead had to be stamped, signed or have sacrificial rituals offered to - None of which at the time was EASILY found on their website during the application process. Everything was listed either as "ID Or Passport document", "Proof of residential Address" and "3 Month's Payslips". Detail is key here, gentlemen/ladies. To have added this somewhere in bold African bank format would have been great and saved us alot of time. At one point I was also advised that even a signed letterhead from my employer would suffice as opposed to the above mentioned for residential proof.</p> <p> </p> <p>Sachin Sing was helpful, and praise can be given to him during the application process, and the one consultant who phoned me to discuss the terms of the contract, but none other. </p> <p>I got the loan, but will almost be spending the entirety thereof on relaxing massages, some on the****utic relaxation classes and very little on the internet connectivity I needed to type this.</p> <p><br /> African Bank has sent me a request to furnish their survey on how I think they did. I wrote this to the best of my ability, in an effort to save your clients from this disgusting experience I had and in hopes that you may better your services. Sadly, due to your survey platform limiting your client's experience, I decided to post your service rating here, without knowledge of any infringements or ill intents to your nature otherwise.</p>