A certain well known high street bank in South Shields told me yesterday that the earliest they could set up an appointment to open a new Bank Account for my wife was 13 business days away on September 16th.   They claim that their “calendar” is full until then because of the “student season”.
This is non-lean customer service on many levels.

I then went to Virgin Money and they were able to give an appointment on September 1st,  only 3 business days away.   Even this 3 day waiting time is more than is acceptable to customers in the age of real-time online services.

The application process only requires the details of the applicant,  proof of ID, and proof of address.
My belief is that Lean process could easily be completed in less than 10 minutes from time of entry to the bank to time of exit.
This would allow for day 4 appointments per hour.

I suspect that the appointment process is documented as being 30 minutes and they do not take more than 1 per hour.  This is information I will find on my next visit.

Neither bank asked the question about how much money we had to deposit or what specific services we needed.

In Lean Six Sigma we call the customer expectations “Voice of the Customer” (VOC) and the specific requirements of the customer the “Critical to Quality requirements” ( CTQs ).

Anyone in the management of these banks should be familiar with these terms.