UBA has the largest branch distribution network in Nigeria with over 6.5 million customers in personal, commercial and corporate market segments. As of 30 September 2008, it had over 650 business offices, 296 deployed POS and 1332 ATMs -WikipediaGranted a number of transactions that could only be done inside the banking halls some years ago in Nigeria are now done from ATMs. UBA however had realized that its customers still have legitimate reasons to visit their nearest branches to transact one business or the other hence the decision to provide information about their branch network. The question is, how useful is the branch information provided on UBA’s website?
UBA has shown its intention to help visitors to its website find their nearest branch
//www.ubagroup.com/web/customerservice/branchlocator.jsp#lagos
UBA only provided a tabular list of all its branches grouped by State. Searching for a particular branch from the list is even harder than making N1million a year as a taxi driver in Lagos! On the average, it takes between 5-10minutes to search for a particular branch from the list. A user needs to scroll up and down the long list to get the details required. I tried doing a search for the UBA branch on Ikosi Rd, Ketu. I had to scroll up and down the list several times until I discovered that the particular branch was not listed. I mean it took me almost 10mins to discovered that the branch was not listed -how helpful could that be!
National Westminster Bank Plc, commonly known as NatWest, is a retail bank in the United Kingdom that has been part of The Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc since 2000.Traditionally considered one of the Big Four clearing banks, NatWest has a large network of 1,600 branches and 3,400 cash machines across. Today it has more than 7.5 million personal customers and 850,000 small business accounts -Wikipedia
With over 1,600 branches across Great Britain, NatWest has provided a useful tool on its website to allow its customers find their nearest branch. http://www.natwest.com/tools/personal/branch_locator/step1.asp
A user simply needs to enter a street name, a town, or the postcode to get the nearest NatWest branch to that location.
The result of the search shows up in the form of a map, showing the location of several branches nearest to the street name or Postcode entered.
Comparing this innovative way of providing information by NatWest by UBA will show UBA’s attempt to provide useful information as a joke.Although it has more branches and customers than UBA, NatWest provides enough information on its website to assist its customers find their nearest breach. This is what true greatness stands for. No wonder NatWest says it provides "Helping Banking" for its customers. Can UBA say it does the same at least from its website?
UBA could argue that perhaps there are no map experts in Nigeria to implement this type of map-based branch locator, but I am here to prove them wrong.
My website – http://www.lagoslocation.com/ contains the location of over 80 UBA branches in Lagos alone. Each branch can be searched for and be displayed on an interactive street map of Lagos.
Users can also generate accurate street-by-street direction from any street in Lagos to any of these 80 UBA branches alone.
I tried searching for UBA branch at Ikosi Rd, Ketu that was conspicuously missing from UBA website and I found it! click here to check it out
My Proposition to UBA Plc
UBA PLC should go beyond the use of beautiful colors and animation on its website and provide more useful information to their customers. Just like NatWest PLC engaged the services of a professional company to implement their map-based branch locator, I hereby offer to assist UBA PLC implement this map-based branch locator on its website FREE of charge. What do I gain from this?
It makes me very happy to see a Nigerian Bank providing contextual information to its customers on its website in an accurate and consistent manner. I can be reached on ireti.ajala@lagoslocation.com
Hey Ireti Ajala, this is awesome. I am not surpised that you could not find the Ikosi branch of UBA on their website. UBA is even beter, go and see the websites of other banks like Union Bank, Afribank, Skye, etc. Some of them simply listed their branches in no particular order making it extremely difficult to search.
ReplyDeleteWe need more articles like this to nudge these banks into thinking about the quality of information they provide on their website. -Emeka
This is a very laudable attempt at correcting the digital divide we have in this country in general. It is good to see that there are people out there who see this gaps and are willing to fill them.
ReplyDeleteBack to UBA. Agreed it would be of great help to UBA customers to have street level map directions to there branches and ATM locations, but Alas, UBA has presence in all the 36 states of the federation including the FCT.
Developing a map mash-up for UBA Presence in Lagos is quite straight forward. But, how do you do the same for the other states without readily available street level map data?
Thanks Emeka for your comments. We'll continue to do our best to showcase how businesses in Nigeria can benefit from having the Location Advantage.
ReplyDeleteThanks for your contribution.
ReplyDeleteActually developing a nationwide online interactive map-based solution which can be support any location-base search functionality for UBA or indeed any bank in Nigeria is not so difficult. I own Spatial Technologies Ltd (www.spatialtechnologiesltd.com) -an IT company registered in Nigeria to provide mapping and Geographic Information System (GIS) solutions. We have mapped over 120 cities including all the state capitals across Nigeria down to street level. Recently, we impelemented a nationwide GIS solution for Zain using the very map data we developed in-house. I can assure you that we have all the vector map data required to implement a nationwide coverage should UBA or any other company in Nigeria be interested.
We have limited the scope of map data coverage on www.lagoslocation.com to Lagos as a way to showcase what can be achieved if we ever take the decision to go national.
Ireti, I hope UBA's Coporate will see this Article and take advantage of this free offer which will help us their customers to locate branches.
ReplyDeleteFrom healthiswealth.org.uk
Hey healthiswealth.org.uk, I am sure UBA will not see this even if someone sends them this article, they will not acknowledge it.
ReplyDeleteIt is only in Nigeria that banks and other companies think that providing accurate and updated information on their websites is outside their remit.
I mean what really does it take to implement this simple solution on UBA's website? Ireti had even offered to do
it free of charge for them. Good work Ireti.
-Joy
This is a good offer to Nigerian Banks in general. It will help us to bridge the gap between the ideal and what obtains in terms of customer services in our Banks.
ReplyDeleteThank you very much for the innovation you are bringing into our nation.
I think this a good job and innovation Ireti, keep it up. Think there was a time all banks in Nigeria were thinking about GIS Application/solution but, i don't know why they chicken out. However, with this your article, they can go back to the drawing board as usual in Nigeria and Start all over again. With this article, they will understand their problem about location and embrace this location based technology. Good job!
ReplyDeleteWell written. I hope they grab this offer as it were bcos if am in Ireti's shoes, i will sell it to them. Kudos.
ReplyDelete