‘You Are Frustrating Us’–Customers Fume Over Poor Services At Ecobank

Poor customer service at Ecobank Nigeria Plc is making customers think of new options that suit their banking needs.

On Monday morning August 2, at about 11:50, the bank’s customers at its Gwarimpa Branch in Abuja almost engaged in a fight after bank securities and staff allowed a group of preferred customers into the banking hall leaving others who had their tags waiting in the queue.

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The development led to exchange of words between an aggrieved customer and one of the ‘favoured ‘ customers who were allowed entry.

“It is the fault of the bank and not ours,” one of the customers who came at about 11:48am said after customers who were waiting for over three hours threatened to disrupt their entry.

He added, “It is a matter of time I will close down my account over time. I won’t be surprised if the bank closes down soon.”

Another customer said “I think there is something wrong with the bank. In one of their branches that I visited; we were kept for hours because only one teller was available at the counter.”

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Beyond the issues of Ecobank’s well-documented service delays, where customers have to wait for hours to be attended to, its online service has also been described as ‘frustrating.’

The bank’s Unstructured Supplementary Service Data (USSD) for offline transactions have also not been available for customers who want to sign up for months.

When our correspondent approached customer service for clarification, the bank staff said the issue had lingered “for months.”

According to the staff, many customers have come for the same issue and they were told to exercise patience.

This means that customers that have not subscribed to the app will have to resort to using ATM or POS points and in the worst case use a bank branch.

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An account holder at the bank told our reporter that he applied for an ATM card and got the card that day after being frustrated for over 30 minutes due to what the customer service described as “bad network.”

He could not use the ATM because the machine that activates cards was faulty.

For about two weeks in July, the bank could not activate new ATM cards over faulty machines, a staff member also told THE WHISTLER.

“It is a nationwide issue and I do not know when it will be fixed,” the staff said.

But the issue was resolved before the end of July THE WHISTLER understands, according to the staff.

THE WHISTLER also understands that for months, customers who visited the branch seeking for a Mastercard have not been able to access the card type.

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The bank runs a mobile banking app, but customers that are not on the platform have not been able to register for over four months, hence they are not able to use their mobile app for transactions.

“This service is not available at the moment,” a pop-up message on the app reads.

“The app is undergoing maintenance and the USSD service is also affected,” another customer service representative at the branch said.

The lender’s half year financial statement shows that its asset has decreased to N803.18bn as of June 2021 from the N811.75bn recorded in 2020

But the Pan-African bank’s Head, Media Relations; Media Buying & Planning and  Sponsorships, Austen Osokpor, told THE WHISTLER that the bank is working to ensure efficient service delivery to customers.

The Covid-19 restrictions have cut down the number of customers that the bank can attend to at a time, Osokpor noted.

“We therefore use this medium to appeal to our customers to be patient when they go to the branches,” he said.

On the issue of the USSD and its mobile banking app, the bank admitted that the services were facing issues due to maintenance.

“Our mobile app is working and readily available to customers; however, only recently the app service was intermittent due to maintenance activities and this may have affected new onboards or customers who may be attempting to download the app on additional devices,” the bank said.

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