CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE
The New Coronified
Normal: What Was…
What Is… And What
Shall Be…
By Carolyne Gathuru
I
am at the bank. I have gone in to
get my photo taken in order to be
processed as an online signatory for
an existing account. Prior to this visit I
had enquired why an in-person visit was
necessary and if it was possible to conduct
the activity offline. I was repeatedly told
that the bank official had to physically
take the photo and verify authenticity
of identity, given the unscrupulous and
underhand ways of many a Kenyan bank
customer.
We are dead smack in the middle of the
Corona Virus pandemic. Our country has
in the past week had the confirmed count
go up from single to double digits. Many
thoughts occur to me about this coerced
bank visit and what it means for today’s
customer, to be forced to be physically
present in a public space in the throes of
a physically spread fatal disease that has
taken the world by storm.
I wonder about the bank as I make this
visit and if they have thought about how
to rejig their processes to take into account
what is emerging as the new normal for
customer convenience. I have wondered
as well if they are putting themselves in
the customer’s apprehensive shoes, and
configuring their systems and structures
to take into account the mutation that
customer convenience has taken on and
what constitutes the new normal.
At the bank entrance I look at the security
lady and my new ‘Coronified’ mind
wonders if the normal body scan with
the hand held security scanning device
would take into account the new social
distancing parameters of keeping one and
a half meters away. I mentally run through
the scanning process and how close it
brings the scanner and the scannee.
I wonder exactly how this body scan
would be conducted. I wonder if I will
be knowingly and willfully subjecting
myself to the potential risk of close
range conversation with her during this
exchange. I wonder too about her safety
and the exposure she has to all sorts of
customers that she would be scanning all
The next question therefore to organiza-
tions big and small alike would be - given
what was, what is and what most likely
will be, has thought been given to custom-
er communication to enable appropriate
guidance towards ensuring customer safe-
ty compromised by the use of common
facilities?
26 MAL35/20 ISSUE
day at close contact, both from the scan
and the conversation exchanges.
Mercifully she waves me on without
the search process. I feel a huge sense
of relief. My apprehension subsides, but
not too much. I then proceed as a result
to wonder if the bank was exposing itself
and by extension its customers to high
risk, by waving in customers without that
initial filtering process to determine if the
entrant has in their possession firearms
or any other weapons of individual or
collective destruction.
This is definitely Strike One! That within
the period the country had embraced the
new normal, this bank had not quickly
adapted to security process change.
Security is a bank’s first port of call
for customer reassurance. The question
therefore to organizations big and small
alike would be - given what was, what is and
what most likely will be, has thought been
given to adjusting the safety procedures at
the entry point for customers?
I am now at the ticketing machine that
banks have embraced over the past few
years, to provide an organized system for
customer queue management. I look at
the queuing space at this machine. We
are four customers. I wonder about the
distance between the machine and the
entrance door and if that distance will
accommodate all four of us at a spaced
distance of one and a half meters apart.
In my swift calculation it will not. We as
such are standing closer to each other as
strangers during this Corona season than
we have been advised by the government.