Innovation is more than a mission for him

Angered by the poor service provided by some public utilities, 57-year-old Shiva Kumar has always wanted to lodge a complaint. He never did. “I used to think, I will write a complaint and submit it tomorrow.

But I never did,” says the deputy managing director at State Bank of India (SBI).

Instead, he came up with an easier way to lodge complaints. His “SMS Unhappy” service — simply texting the word “unhappy” to a service number and receiving a prompt response from a customer care officer — has since caught the attention of several other banks. It’s just one of the 16 novel initiatives that Kumar has come up with for SBI in the past four years.

“It is in my nature to do new things. We should be ahead of the times,” he says, adding: “Quality of service makes a lot of difference and I believe in providing good service.” Besides thinking up ways to improve customer service, Kumar is the only SBI officer to have worked as chief general manager (CGM) in three circles of the country’s largest lender: Lucknow, Bhubaneshwar and Hyderabad.

Kumar was posted as CGM of Hyderabad circle in November 2009. Within a month of assuming charge, he launched the SMS Unhappy service. SBI has applied for a patent for the service, and is rolling it out across the country. The initiative has not only been replicated by SBI’s insurance arm, SBI Life, but also by ICICI Bank, Andhra Bank and State Bank of Hyderabad. The Indian School of Business introduced it as a case study in its management course.

“This can also be termed ‘Green Banking’, as there is no paper transaction. The entire process is done through the Internet and mobile phone,” says Kumar.

The Unhappy service helped propel SBI to the number one position in terms of customer satisfaction in Hyderabad. “Our mission was to be first in customer satisfaction and we have achieved that,” says Kumar.

SBI has received 25,000 complaints so far at an average of 2,000 a month. Prior to this, the bank received 150 complaints a month.

Kumar also introduced a web-based customer grievance redressal tracking system (or, CGRTS). Under this, complaints received from various sources — including RBI and the banking ombudsman — are uploaded to a web page at the local head office and made available to branches in real time. According to Kumar, CGRTS reduces resolution time drastically and eliminates the drudgery of paperwork, besides saving time and energy.

Kumar’s ideas are not confined to just customer care. He launched the One-Rupee Bank, the first initiative in India for urban financial inclusion. He had set up a network of 20 branches in Hyderabad, where the poor can open an account with just Rs 1 with minimum know-your-customer requirements. SBI has 20,000 such accounts.

At the other end of the scale, Kumar set his sights on high net-worth individuals (HNIs) by opening the Kohinoor Banjara, a premium banking centre where a minimum of Rs 1 crore is needed to open an account. “Kohinoor created a ripple in the banking industry. Since it was opened, we have got a business of around Rs 100 crore. We are getting a business of Rs 1 crore a day. This has never happened before,” says an obviously elated Kumar.

“These initiatives have taken my bank ahead of all others. We have a credit-deposit ratio of 130 per cent, while the ratio of many SBI circles and major banks in the country is less than 80 per cent,” says Kumar.