On Tuesday I needed to deposit some cash into my checking account at Bank of America. I usually do this once or twice a week and have never had any issues or problems until today when the ATM machine I was using decided to eat $726 dollars of the $1026 dollars that I was putting into my account. After fiddling with the machine for about ten minutes I decided I should go inside and speak to a teller to see if they could help me figure out what went wrong and more importantly, help me retrieve the missing $726 dollars.
Upon walking into the bank I noticed a short line and immediately go behind the last person. After a few minutes my turn had arrived and I walked up to the teller, a woman who I have dealt with many times before, and proceeded to explain my situation to her and showing her my the printed deposit slip that showed my deposit of $300 dollars with the words “Sorry, some of your items could not be processed or returned. Please contact your financial institution.” Her immediate response was “I can’t help you, call the 1-800 number on your deposit slip. Next in line please.”
“If you make customers unhappy in the physical world, they might each tell 6 friends. If you make customers unhappy on the Internet, they can each tell 6,000 friends.” — Jeff Bezos – Chairman and CEO of Amazon.com
The comment and tone of her response irritated me and I demanded to speak to someone who could help me. She asked me to have a seat in the “personal banking” area and said she would send someone over to talk to me. After waiting about 10 minutes, another woman came over and asked what she could help me with. I explained to her the situation, and again, was told “I can’t help you.” We walked over to her desk, she asked for my ATM card and drivers license, she picked up the phone and dialed some numbers and then handed me the phone saying, “we have no control over the ATM machines, you’ll need to speak to a customer service rep at the main office”.
“Customers don’t expect you to be perfect. They do expect you to fix things when they go wrong.” — Donald Porter V.P., British Airways
The man on the phone asked me a series questions…. he asked for my address, my phone number, how much money I deposited and in what denominations, etc. He then started to end the conversation by saying that depending on the outcome of the “investigation,” it would take up to 45 days for me to receive my lost funds. I told him that a 45 day wait was unacceptable and then he finally agreed to credit my account for the missing $726 dollars. He then explained that if the money does not show up that I should expect charge-back at some point during the 45 days. I wrote down the claim number and left the bank shaking my head.
After getting back to a computer, I pulled my twitter account and mentioned that I would be closing my Bank of America account because of bad customer service. A few minutes later I received a tweet from @BofA_help asking if he could assist with my problem. I was a little surprised to see his message pop up on my screen… I simply told him to tell the tellers at the Ukiah branch that “I can’t help you” is not an acceptable response to a customer problem. I’m sorry @BofA_help, not even your tweet can save this account.
For what its worth, I have been a loyal Bank of America customer for well over a decade. I’ve never had any issues with my account or problems with overdrafts or negative balances.
What Bank of America should have done:
Shown compassion to my situation
If the teller could not have helped me with my situation, her response should have been more along the lines of “I’m really sorry about that, I can’t help you, but let me get you someone who can.”
A little reassurance goes a long way
The second person I spoke with was admittedly a nicer person, but again, not very helpful. A customer should never hear the words “I can’t help you.”
A resolve to resolve
I understand that they would question my claim, but find it very hard to believe that it takes 45 days to find out if there is extra money inside an ATM machine. I ended up leaving the bank not knowing if I’ll get to keep the $726 dollar credit.
I live in a small town where large corporations already have a bad reputation. Bank of America needs to learn that If you can’t take care of your customers, someone else will.
“Your most unhappy customers are your greatest source of learning.” — Bill Gates, Chairman of Microsoft
Update – August 14, 2009
Lauren Tara LaCapra has mentioned my Bank of America troubles in her TheStreet.com article, Banks A-Twitter for Tweeting, thanks Lauren.
Photo credit: kevindooley (flickr cc 2.0)
No related posts.
Thu, May 21, 2009
Customer Service