About Kotak Jifi and Khyati.

Kotak jifi is here….
Curious,
“World’s first socially powered bank” curriouser… if I may quote Carroll Lewis.
Socially powered bank somehow created an image of the famous direct marketing paradigm, I started having visions of my best friend turning up at my door step and showing me the plan for the “product.”
I thought let me beat her to it, I walked up to Kotak Mahindra bank’s only office at Goa ,though they have an ATM at Candolim, but office at hotel Park Plaza, where Parking is a pain. Anyway the bank opens at 12, so I trotted in.
One nice young man told me,”Jifi, oh! Yes madam, our branch.whatever… will help you”
Another 15mnts wait, and finally the lady gives me a bright smile, “actually madam, we have not launched the product in Goa as yet. But all you need to do is access  the net and browse our site.”
I wanted to snap back “honey if your site answered my concerns why would I bother with you?”
Anyway I had shot a mail to the customer care, and I did browse the web. It was quite informative however still confusing for a person like me. I mean tweet your account I could see visuals of my financial health plastered all over twitter.
That’s when Khyati called. She is the customer care personal for Kotak Mahindra Jifi—hey Kotak Mahindra you need to give this gal a golden star,
She took me through the steps,
I need to physically go to a bank that offers the Jifi product and open an account. It is a zero balance account; I can get a cheque book, a debit card. Okay,
If were to save in the JIFI account, I would get no interest until I hit 25000/- fair enough. Every 5000/-over the 25000 would get treated like a term deposit. Now that was good news.
I hesitantly asked her about the social media, part of it, she was actually quite sweet, “well ma’m we have these product inputs, or happenings on our FB page, when you refer our page or hit a like button we acknowledge it by giving you loyalty points,. These points are redeemable with our mercantile partners.”
A nice incentive I did get a whiff of the referral marketing but I guess it is fun aren’t we all kids who like our goody bags –at the end of the day…
“Khyati, how can I get to open the account?” I inquired,
“Ma’m we don’t have the product in Goa.” I wanted to say “tell me something new, your branch product manager has already enlightened me,”
She of course could not hear the postscript that I muttered under my breath, but on her own she continued, “But ma’m there is a way out if you have a close relative who lives in any town that has the product you could have a joint account put that person’s name first when we do start at your town transfer it and make it a single account.” Whether I do it or not she did offer me a pro-active option.
“Khyati,” I asked, “What if I was to get active on the social media, would you bunch the points for me till you launch the product at Goa”
“I’m sorry madam, I wish I could, but we can’t. The product is available in Delhi, Bombay, Bangalore, Hyderabad and Chennai.”
Well Khyati, you’ve taken so good care of me, when you do launch JIFI at Goa, I shall sign up in a JIFFY….until then tweet me about it, oh! Hell Khyati dear could you explain to me what the tweet to my account all about? I would not want to tweet about my financial health….
By the way, would Jifi honour the bloggers by calling us blogger whosoever on the debit card.?
Written for Indiblogger – http://www.kotakjifi.com