Impersonal Banking
Bank bashing is easy, unproductive and old hat. Therefore, let me say this: if I lent hundreds of thousands of dollars to a virtual stranger so he could buy a home, run a business and do up his kitchen, I’d certainly expect to hold the whip hand.
Though it concerns banking, this post is about promises.
Many years ago, I left one big bank to protest bad service. The new big bank was better. When I got my line of credit, I was told I had a Personal Banker.
To prove it, I was sent a card with the name and contact details of a live human being.
I was highly sceptical. But once I started dealing with Sally*, my faith was renewed.
Sally answered my calls, replied to my emails, explained things clearly and strove to make good things happen fast.
As I wrote in her Christmas card [!] ‘You have single-handedly restored my faith in banks.’
When Sally was promoted to a bigger branch, I had my accounts transferred to be near her. Through the trials of recession and renovation, she was there: calming, helping, advising.
Then she got headhunted by a smaller bank.
Devastated, I tracked her down to see if I could switch banks. Alas, she’d also changed division and role.
That night, the concrete path to Empire House inexplicably cracked^.
My bank assigned me to a new Personal Banker, who promptly broke several limbs playing football and never regained focus.
My next Personal Banker moved overseas before we could meet.
My next Personal Banker changed branches, but wasn’t worth following.
My next Personal Banker was literally impossible to contact. I had to appeal his poor performance via online banking.
His replacement (my next Personal Banker) spoke to me twice before handballing me to her assistant for ‘personal reasons’.
In one of these exchanges, she advised that my request for a lower interest rate had been turned down by ‘the bank’.
I managed to get her email address, as I wished to posit that for my purposes, she was ‘the bank’. She hasn’t replied.
Finally, I asked her underling if it’d help to transfer my accounts to head office, just in case it was ‘the bank’.
He said no.
How I wish my bank had never put the idea of ‘personal banking’ into my head.
Because of this promise, I now suffer the sting of betrayal.
Would that I could regain the mistrust which once cocooned me from constant disappointment.
Come to think of it,
I’m almost there.
* Not her real name.
^ Not really; the neighbour’s tree fell on it during pruning.
Did you enjoy this post? Why not leave a comment below and continue the conversation, or subscribe to my feed and get articles like this delivered automatically to your feed reader.
I think this post is also about managing expectations. It’s better to under-promise and over-deliver (thereby pleasantly surprising customers) than to set standards that you can’t consistently adhere to.
As you said, you wish the bank had never given you a taste of personal banking – while it was a great concept, it probably did more harm than good in many ways because they couldn’t maintain it. They ended up disappointing you more than if you’d never been offered the service in the first place.
It’s so tempting to offer value adds – but beware of the pitfulls of not fulfilling the promise. I guess it means you need to be very careful about scoping out your service before you make those promises – can you guarantee that level of service consistently?
Spot on, Megan! I couldn’t have said it better. When are we going to get a guest post from you?! ‘The Perils of Blogger Wrangling’.
I can SOOOOO relate to what Paul has written. I too have had a stream of personal bankers. They come, they send a letter and card telling me how much they are looking forward to working with me and then they’re gone. I’ve had 4 this year alone and one lasted less than a month.
Some have been great and others very poor. I pay $400 a year to be a ‘wealth package’ (seems to be wealth for the bank only).
There is absolutely no continuity of service and they are breaking down the fundamental premise of ‘relationship banking’. Of course they have only limited control if people resign (question about their training and retention policies aside of course) but they do appear to transfer staff with gay abandon.
You’re right bank bashing is old hat however in many instances they deserve it. Fees and charges do apply. Penalties for late payments will be incurred. A $35.00 reversal fee will apply to over drawn accounts. This is not an interest baring account. There is a 5 day clearance on your money so we can play the money market. We are closing 120 branches this year. Don’t call us we’ll call you when you owe us money.We value your cutomer and our customers are our top priority. Yeah right.
Thank you, Malcolm. Having some knowledge of your history with banks, I appreciate your restraint! I’ll go on Twitter later and invite some banking sector folk to comment on the points we raise here.
Hi Paul,
That is an interesting post. In my banking days it was against most banks policies to allow customers to follow a lending banker for audit reasons. However, you are right that the concept of personal bankers is very difficult for banks unless you are a community bank like the Bank of Bendigo which I have never used, but I would imagine that the staffing decisions would be at a local level.
Regards
Jack Taggerty
http://5starinnovation.com
Thanks for your input, Jack. When I was gathering Twitter feedback for this post, one person said that the lending orgy (and meltdown) of the 80s was due to the too-cosy relationship between clients and personal bankers.
He suggested that banks now change personal bankers every 12 months as a matter of policy. I can see the merit of this. If only they’d drop the ‘personal’ nomenclature and keep it real in the house! Best regards, P.
Well now I feel somewhat hmmmm.
I never had a personal banker….
I had a lady (from an ANZ branch) who, when asked to add our new Trust to an account, told us we should go to another bank because there was nothing she could do. No accounts we could open that would work with a trust…..You can imagine my face…..Huh???
I asked her is she was really telling us to take our business elsewhere….really????
Yes, she nodded. Hmmmmm
So we went to another nearby branch and proceeded to tell the manager what had happened and ended up opening new accounts and getting credit cards…!!!! They were appalled at what we had been told. Training issue coming up methinks….
Too funny
Thank you, Yvonne; I really appreciate personal accounts (tee hee) like this.
[...] with impersonal banking, it’s the breach of trust that hurts the [...]