EFFECTIVE PUBLIC RELATIONS AS AN INSTRUMENT FOR THE ACHIEVEMENT OF ORGANIZATIONAL OBJECTIVE. (A CASE STUDY OF ZENITH INTERNATIONAL BANK LTD)
CHAPTER ONE
1.1 BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY
The reasons why banks strive to improve their profitability are obvious and varied. In this era of competition, there is need for organizations, bans, business enterprises, churches,, clubs and others to evolve ways or procedures to improve the performances of their consumers.
In banking industry, the need is more pronounced especially when they are faced with what is called inter – bank competition, which at time leads to the declining profit making of many banks. Banks have recognized that effective public relations has become the integrating force which assists them in achieving their goals and objectives; and it is geared towards building good corporate image for their respective branches.
In furtherance of these objectives, many banks inNigeriahave introduced extra incentives such as credit cards, weekend banking, in an attempt to provide exceptional services for their customers.
A bank is defined as an institution for keeping, lending and exchanging of money. Any body could set up a bank provided he is registered under the provision of a banking company.
Public relations is defined as the way of presenting a good image of an organization to the public, especially by providing information in other words, to bring to the knowledge of the public an organization or a product that has not been in existence. It is worthy to note here that effective public relations stands to be a vital tool for the achievement of organizational objectives. Thus, the staff, management and board of directors who are solely in charge of Zenith international bank, should all come together and put in plans and programme which would be used in the attainment of their goals.
Brief history of zenith international bank limited
Zenith bank ofNigerialimited was incorporated as a private limited company with an authorized share capital of less than (500,000,000) five hundred million. The share capital was subsequently increased to #800,000,000 million. The 800,000 ordinary shares of #2.50k each has been issued and fully paid.
The bank was issued a license to carry on banking business in May 1990. it commenced business on May 1990, and a to owned by privateNigeriainvestors. Zenith bank international has its head office inVictoria Island,Lagosstate capital.
Zenith bank to commission to the expansion of its branches network with a view of making its services available throughout the country. For now, the bank has branches inEnugu,Onitsha,Lagos,Abuja, Port Harcourt Jos, Calabar, Owerri, Ogun, Akure etc.
1.2 STATEMENT OF RESEARCH PROBLEM
Banking services in zenith bank ofEnugustate to really poor and discouraging. The qualities of services rendered by the bank have been attracting criticisms from people in all works of life. The government functionaries, business men, the media and the general public are all very critical of banking services. The complains range from the following
v Inefficiency of workers (Zenith bank workers) on their jobs
v Favoritism to some customers. I.e. special customers.
v Long delays in cashing cheque or making or making withdrawals
v Unfriendly attitude of bank workers.
v Tardiness in granting loans or credits
Most banks do not realize that customers should be put in the prime place as they are supposed to be. There is now keen competition, and to compete means to apply the public relations concept. Are these criticisms justified, or are they just a mare run down of Zenith bank because they are making all necessary effort to be one of the leading banks.
1.3 OBJECTIVE OF THE STUDY
From all that has been written above, it is the aim of this study to take an insight in Zenith bank limited, and study the approach of the bank to their customers.
v To identify if public relations is being carried out and what are the innovations added to it to improve bank profitability
v To ascertain whether customers are satisfied with the services rendered by the bank.
v To find out how public relation in bank can be used in improving contact within the associate institute of bankers trade unions, business community, government policies and employees.
v To find out how Zenith bank public relations department function
v To identify problems encountered by the public relations department
1.4 RESEARCH QUESTIONS
Ho: The public relations department of Zenith bank does not contribute towards the patronage of the bank.
Hi: The public relations department of Zenith bank contributes towards the patronage of the bank
Ho: the level of awareness in Zenith bank is a directly related to the public relation activities in solving management problems in the bank.
Hi: the level of awareness in Zenith bank is not directly related to the public relation activities in solving management problems in the bank
Ho: There is no two – way information flow between the management of Zenith bank and staff.
Hi: Information flow between the management of Zenith bank and staff is one way and not two ways.
1.5 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY
There have been criticisms about the banking services of Zenith bank limitedEnugu, and the way they render services to their customers they do not really see the customer as king.
The researcher wants to carry out ad research on what Zenith bank does (and to find out if they adopt the application of public relation concept in the condition of services.
The researcher also wants to have an empirical base either to support all the sources about the poor impression people have on zenith bank, and to advice then on how to improve their services by adopting the marketing mix – advertising, promotional items like biros’, T – shirts etc. all these would be used in getting or attracting the customers to the bank. And also, it would assist the bank in having more customers to come and open an account with them, there by increasing their profits especially when it is a higher account which has enough interest. The magic formula is adopting public relation as a way of life. A business must learn to think of itself not as producing goods or services, but as buying customer and doing thing that would make people want to deal with you. Do banks really know their customers, and are they fancy or live? If my findings are not valid, I would say there are no bases for the criticism, but that they arise because Zenith bank limited is not doing well if their services are poor, why they should make profit. Are they doing this at the detriment of their customers?
1.6 LIMITATION OF THE STUDY
In the course of this research, the researcher encountered some constraints some of them include time, poor co – operation from the respondents of what one may aptly call negative attitude of the respondents.
Time: this constituted a problem on part of the researcher. He had limited time to carry out the research work; other class work and assignment are being done along side.
Finance: proper and intensive research requires money. The researcher lacked the necessary where withal to procure the relevant materials for the dispensation of the work.
Attitude: in the process of eliciting information, some respondents exhibited negative attitude thus making it elusive for the researcher to gather relevant information.
Scope
The scope of this study to limited only to zenith bank limited inEnuguwhose branch in Oguette main market.
Definition of terms
Tardiness - slow to act, move or happen; late in happening or arriving.
Evolve - to develop gradually e especially from a simple to a more complicated form
Eliciting - to get information or a reaction from somebody, often with difficulty
Aptly - suitable or appropriate in the circumstance
Woo - to try to get the support of somebody. Or a man tries to persuade a woman to love him and marry him
