Customer Service

Customer service - what a concept. You meet your customers' needs courteously and in a timely manner, you make the customer happy, and he or she returns and does more business in the future. If you are really good, your customer recommends your services to someone else.

This post, as you might have guessed, is not a recommendation. It concerns one of our large regional banks, which I will not identify except to say that their name is an improper fraction properly expressed as 1 2/3. My history with this institution began when my preferred bank was purchased by another, then another, and a third. It has been, until recently, a rather benign relationship. It started with a savings account, than an IRA and finally a "convenience" checking account, not my primary one.

The savings account, like many, got closed and combined with another at a different bank. The IRAs are still there, growing both through contributions and compounded interest, albeit at a currently abysmal rate. The checking account has had its ups and downs, and was used intermittently. The paper checks, still bearing the name of the next to last bank, rarely got used, The debit card was down to 1 -2 uses a year. The final straw was a statement showing a monthly charge to "maintain" this account. It was time to close it.

So I go to the bank and state my intent. This,of course, entails a short wait to see a "bank officer" since a mere teller (oops....customer service representative) could not possibly complete this task. So I'm ushered into her office to complete the transaction. She, of course, needs to pull up my information on her computer monitor, which shows all of my accounts. She then asks the fatal question as to why I want to close my account. I, to the best of my recollection, tell her that I don't write checks any more and that I don't want to pay fees when I (literally) have tens of thousand of dollars (my IRA) on deposit in her institution. This reply, an obvious cue for her to offer me an incentive to keep my account open, goes right over her head! Then, as I am about to leave with my (fee depleted) balance, she mentions that if I ever want to open a new checking account (!) the bank had some "no fee" accounts that I might investigate!! So much for customer service....

Needless to say, no new business will come to this bank from me. Additionally, as my IRA certificates mature, they will get "rolled over" to another institution, probably my credit union. I know that I'm a small fish and the loss of my business will not affect their botom line. But if they treat all of their customers with a similarly cavalier attitude.......