Client Relationship Management: Fill & Download for Free

Absolutely. Many large investment banks separate those who engage in business development, or client relationship management, from those who deliver advice, such as merger & acquisition execution teams. A great salesman doesn't necessarily need to be a great modeler, although many of the best ones once did modeling earlier in their careers.

I once worked in a London office of an international private bank.One day, it was one of my friend’s 30th birthday and I decided to bring in a cake. So far so good! I also decided it would be a good idea to top this cake with a “singing” candle - when it was lit, it played a tinny electronic version of happy birthday.So morning tea time came, I got the cake out and lit the candle.1 - the sound was considereably louder than was expected. It managed to interrupt the phone call of one of the Relationship Managers who was talking to a very important client.2 - we blew it out but as the sound was heat activated, it still continued and did not stop.3 - Relationship Manager getting more angry with us.4 - Blowing the candle out caused (rather surprisingly) a large amount of smoke which set the fire alarm off and ended up with the ENTIRE building being evacuated until the fire service pronounced it safe to return.5 - Relationship Manager was physically dragged from his desk literally kicking and screaming by the Premises Manager.This happened in 1998 and is still spoken about to this day (even though I left a while ago, my friends are still there).

Last week I went on a business trip to Singapore.I rarely (and a lot of people) use cash as a payment mode here in Bangalore as cards, Paytm or BHIM works almost everywhere. I never thought this would be a problem in such a technologically advanced country like Singapore.Hence I had minimum cash, as I thought I would do a cash withdrawal or make payments through the card at Singapore whenever required, and this has never been a problem for me in my past trips.I was carrying an HDFC platinum “international” card - Biggest Regret of my life.I landed at Changi airport and went straight to a Lunch meeting. The meeting went well, but at the time of payment, to my horror, my card got declined.We tried a few times but the result was still the same.I flushed out of embarrassment and had to request my client to pay for the same.After the meeting, I tried to withdraw cash, still the same. I was sure there was something wrong with my card. I reached out to a recently assigned “Relationship Manager” from HDFC and hoped that he would do something to fix it for me. And this was his reaction:I mentioned it to him that this is urgent, and he just brushed off saying “Call customer care”, with utter disregard for the situation I was in. This was not the first time he did that, he would always redirect me to either to Customer Care or Branch.So I logged in to my account, saw that they have suddenly deactivated my card, without any information and there was no option on the portal for me to request for its activation or even view any of the card details.This is the screenshot of the further conversation, which is the last conversation I had with him and he just ignores the issue.By this time I knew he wouldn’t help. I reached out to my branch manager through my colleague back in India and here is how he helped me:Oh, I mean how he ignored my issues.By now I knew these guys were never going to help me. I went on to Twitter for help.I thought - “Quick response, I would get this resolved asap”,No, I was wrong.They recorded my issue, issued me a ticket number and sent me a mail, the next day that issue will be resolved “within 5 working days”.5 Working Days, Imagine being stuck in a country with no connections and they have the audacity of saying it will take 5 working days!I lost all hope in HDFC by this time. I begged for friend's card for transactions and managed to somehow spend the next 2 days in Singapore and came back on 26th, where to my surprise the card started working as soon as I landed.Imagine a situation where a person is stuck without access to money in a foreign country and one of the best banks (According to them) in the country leaves you hanging, with utter disregard of the gravity of the situation.The whole support system of HDFC is the same, be it customer “care”, “relationship manager”, or even the branch manager.So here is on the promise they did keep. After 5 days, I receive this mail.“The Risk team had temporarily blocked the card due to suspect fraud. This was done for your safety”.And they took the issue up with the risk team and they removed the block. Did they?My guess: the system which is obviously faulty in design, blocked my card, with no way to reactivate it.As soon as I landed and used my card at a domestic merchant, the block was automatically lifted. So they did nothing to address the issue.And they expect me to “bear with them” for 5 days in a foreign country with no money.First: The complaint was urgent, I was abroad and HDFC disabled the card. But their resolution doesn't look like it was urgent. The card automatically started working as soon as I landed back in India. I had no cash, had to beg for friend's card for transactions.Second: The card is "International" for a reason. So that I don't have to take HDFC’s "permission" or "notify" their "risk team" every time I go abroad.Third: If it was disabled, where is the notification for the same? or where is the option to enable it back ? or why wasn’t it taken up on priority?Fourth: Their relationship managers and bank managers are of no use. They did nothing, absolutely nothing even though they were the first ones I reached out to.I have been banking with HDFC for past 6 years, with 2 accounts, I guess you should also just disable both accounts so that I can transfer the banking to some other "better" bank and have a better experience.HDFC already is infamous for faulty transactions and unjustifiable transactions and this was my last straw with them.Time to move to some other bank. Any suggestions?