I recently received a “service” call from a bank representative who wanted me to switch my account to their particular bank. After going through all the “please note that for quality purposes all our conversations are taped…”, she went on to tell me that should I make the switch, they would give me three months free banking. That was when I realized, and told her accordingly, that the call was not “a service call” after all but a “marketing” one and then suggested that she should convince me why I should make the switch.
Interestingly as we continued talking, I found out that the lady had some background information about my banking history with her specific bank and wanted me to switch back to the bank and in return, they would give me free banking services for three months. I was, naturally, utterly intrigued by the incentive she was offering!! Let me explain, I had an account with this bank for many years until I decided to “switch” to another bank because of the extremely poor service I received from them.
I was intrigued by the fact that she did not express any interest as to why I had switched banks in the first place. Instead she tried to entice me with some waiver of bank charges. Not that it would have made any difference. Had someone called me when I “switched” banks (about a year ago), I might have been fooled that someone cared. To try to entice me with some sweetener almost shocked me. As the bank was paying for the call, I could afford some degree of verbosity in explaining myself to her and this I duly did.
Without using those exact terms, I explained that the reasons why I left the bank in the first place and that while the bank had excellent banking products (which they do) their service sucked (here I used the exact terminology) and until such time that I could be convinced that this had changed, I was not about to move back and forth between banks just because one bank offered cheaper banking costs. I went further than that - expressing my delight that the call was being recorded so that others may get the message - and pointed out that it seemed that the banks were entering into a recruitment campaign following their losses as a consequence of the proverbial GFC (Global Financial Crisis) without having anything better to offer except the old tired “rewards” which were nothing but enticements.
Without charging any consultancy fee, I offered the advice that the bank may consider training its employees to provide good service to its customers first, to be followed by a good banking product mix, and to complement this with good advertising. Good advertising without a good service simply robs the institution of any credibility and you need to bank with people you could trust. I haven’t heard anything from her since. It is possible that I may have cost her valuable recruitment time that could have been put to better use with those looking for “rewards” and therefore help her to meet her targets. That, regrettably, was not my concern.
Why did I go all out to provide this good advice to the banking lady? The reason is that, with the limited number of banks in the country, I will soon run out of options to “switch” to because of bad service. My current bank is the fourth bank that I have switched to and there are only four major banking groups in the country. While the products they offer are excellent, the service is really appalling. The management seem to forget that they are in business not to compete with other banks on product offerings but to provide good banking services to people.
