Some bank customers in The Gambia are questioning the fairness of bank queues in financial institutions across the country.
Long queues characterise every industry, banks included. A queue is supposed to be orderly in that it exemplifies first come, first serve.
But it is alleged that staff of banks do sometimes give preferential treatment to some people by allowing them to jump queues, leaving others irritated and — even disgusted.
Fatou Sanneh, a customer with Trust Bank, said that slow and disorganised queues at any bank could result to customers’ negative perception of that bank. She averred that wasting someone’s time could also result to some form of economic loss for that individual, given that people have other things to do at home or elsewhere.
“Customers are not treated equally at the banks, because you will be sitting or standing at the queue for, like 20 minutes, then another customer will just walk in without joining the queue, and he or she is attended to, just because he knows someone, which is totally unfair,” she complained.
Saihou Jallow, who banks with Ecobank, beleves there are always long queues at the banks because that is where people go for financial transactions like paying their children’s school fees etc. He suggested that everyone in a queue be given a token number to make it easy, fair and transparent for both customers and bankers.
Ebrima Suso, who banks with GTBank, also expressed his dissatisfaction with the operating system of the banks in the country as it pertains to queues.
He said that customers are never treated equally at the banks, maintaining that waiting times in one bank are not noticeably different from any other bank. He added that a customer who is subjected to unnecessary delay in any bank will develop a negative impression of that bank.
