I am not impressed with my bank’s customer service! BY SOULAIMA GOURANI
I received an e-mail from my bank today. I haven’t heard a word from my bank for the past 12 months. I was somewhat pleased when I saw their e-mail. My first thought was “Now they come with a progressive proposal to ensure that I remain a satisfied and loyal customer.” My business is doing really well, and we have been good customers of the bank for nine years. That’s what I thought! Before I opened the e-mail, I felt certain that they wanted to invite my husband and me to an exciting meeting where they would suggest how I can continue to optimize my private and commercial investments—that they were now going to show how much they value me as a customer! I was thinking the following: Perhaps they would like to know whether I am about to recruit more employees and whether I have some new needs. Perhaps they would like to know whether our family will soon grow out of our lovely coveted Copenhagen apartment. Perhaps they would like to know whether I am currently considering engaging in different types of investments. The truth is that I have been contacted by other banks including Nordea and Nykredit and a private investment company over the past three weeks. All of them would really like to invite me to meetings to discuss the future of my business and my family. My husband has been even invited to one of the meetings. Yes, I felt flattered. Have I been thinking about switching to another bank? Not really. Or at least not until today! When I read the e-mail, my joy of receiving it disappeared, and I couldn’t help but feel very angry. Why? Read for yourself. This is, in translation, what the bank wrote to me: Hi Soulaima It’s time to renegotiate the terms of your overdraft facility. Therefore, I ask you to submit your most recent annual statement from the tax authorities to us. Please send it within the next three weeks. As a result of increasing demands on the sector, as a bank, we are required to maintain an updated insight into our customer’s financial situation when we offer credit or loan—whether or not that engagement is running smoothly. Therefore, we have decided to periodically review all of our overdraft facility agreements and are in this regard asking for updated financial information. I hope you understand this, and I am looking forward to hearing from you. What do they expect me to think about this? They are only thinking of themselves and their own processes. They have completely overlooked that there is a receiver of the communication at the other end. This is the reason that companies lose customers. Their own processes are more important to them than their customers when, in the first place, they are put into this world to deliver value to their customers. Now, in this case, it’s a bank, but it could have been any business. As a customer, client, partner, or patient, I want to feel that I am the company’s center of attention and that the company really cares about me. If they are not willing to do that, I will just take my business elsewhere. In this case, I can “just” make an agreement with another bank, and I intend to do so. Like 96 percent of all customers, I am not even interested in making a complaint. I will just switch to
another bank. This could have been avoided… I would have reacted more positively if they had written the same but in a different tone of voice—maybe something like the letter below: Hi Soulaima, It’s been 12 months. So much happens in a year, and I would like to give you a call (or invite you to a brief meeting here at the bank) to hear about how things are going with your business and your personal finances. We have been following your development and the progress of your business. We imagine that you have plans for 2011 that we can help discuss and develop. If you send us your most recent income tax statement, we will get back to you with suggestions for meeting dates. We look forward to hearing from you. I have three tips for these kinds of companies: Ensure that all customer-facing processes (and IT processes and systems) are geared toward real customer contact. Ensure that all customers are evaluated regularly to avoid good customers, who are often silent and cause very little trouble, from not being acknowledged by you. Companies tend to spend resources on the customers who are the most noisy, critical, and problematic. While you focus on these customers, your good customers are leaving you. Ensure that everyone in the company knows how to give good and competent service so that all customers feel welcome and helped. What is your experience as a customer in banks, telecommunications companies, or insurance companies?