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MARKET RESEARCH CASE

ROYAL BANK OF INDIA

Royal Bank of India is the oldest bank in India. Its current assets are about

Rs.8000 crores and earnings for the most recent year exceeded Rs.130 crores.

Down the years RBI has tried to maintain an image of pleasant, convenient and

comfortable place to do ones banking. Of late, officials at the bank were

concerned because of some dissatisfaction among the customers. Specifically,

complaints seems to fall into the four categories: (1) slow moving lines (2) a

pressured feeling of doing business with other customers crowded against ones

back (3) withdrawal and check cashing transactions being easily observed by

other customers (4) having to wait a long time to make a relatively minor

transaction.

In the light of these complaints, the bank officials were considering two

proposals which might help improve customer service. Under the present

system, the bank used teller units with 12 windows each, and a customer

seeking service would enter any one of the 12 lines of people which had been

formed in front of the windows. In the proposed Fast Teller Arrangements, all

the customers would enter the same single line and as a teller became available,

the first person in that line would move up to the available teller.

The management felt that this setup might eliminate at least three of the major

complaints. First, a customer would no longer have to wait in a particularlyslow moving line while line next to him moved more rapidly. Second, since

only one person at a time would be standing at a teller window that persons

transactions would be less easily observed by the other customers. Also that

person shall feel less pressured to finish his or her business in a hurry since no

one would be standing behind them.

The second proposal being considered was Express Service. Currently, a wide

range of transactions could take place at any teller such as savings deposits,

checking, withdrawals, charges on the credit cards etc. The Express Service

would utilize specialized teller windows where a customer would be limited toone or possibly two specific transactions. Although the management believed

that this arrangement would expedite service, they were uncertain as to which

particular transactions were used in combination by enough customers to

warrant Express Service.

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The bank officials gave Mr. Anil Banerjee, the assignment of studying and

making recommendations concerning the addition of the two proposed services.

Banerjee had been with the bank for the last two years, ever since his

graduation from the State University. He had only recently been transferred to

his present position in the service department. As Banerjee reviewed the

assignment given to him, he felt that the banks information regarding the

complaints was inadequate for making a recommendation and that more

research would have to be done.

Banerjee felt that either of the two approaches could be used to obtain the

information needed to evaluate the Fast Teller service.He could conduct an

attitudinal survey of banks image, getting at complaints in an indirect or

disguised manner. Or he could conduct a survey asking directly for banks

good or bad points. Regardless of which approach was used; he would have to

determine how to select respondents and whether to interview in person, or by

mail or by telephone.

Banerjee believed that the evaluation of the Express Service proposal might be

somewhat more complicated. This was due to the fact that the management

wanted to know what specific transactions would qualify for the Express

Service and which transactions could be most feasibly be combined at any

given window. Banerjee wondered whether through observing and keeping a

record of the transactions made by a sample of customers, he would be able to

gather sufficient data to answer these questions. If he could get the needed

information by this method, he would have to decide if he should combineobservation method with interviews or if observation would suffice.

Furthermore Banerjee wondered if this research on Express Service should be

carried out jointly with or independently of the research on the Fast teller

service.

QUESTIONS

1. What information should Banerjee collect to evaluate each if the proposed

services?2. What research project(s) should be used in the evaluation of each of the

proposed services?

3. Design each of these projects. What method of collecting data should be

used in each of the above?