Duty of care just window dressing
(3 October 2006 – Australia) East & Partners regularly receives correspondence from readers of Banking News and we thought we would publish two emails we received over the past week as they both deal with aspects of customer service. The exasperated and slightly cynical tone of both emails suggests that customers DO notice when customer care is essentially window dressing and is not genuine.
All care but no follow up
After a recent visit to a bank branch, I realised that banks were getting very serious about customer care. In addition to providing assistance with a routine transaction, a customer service representative ventured to discuss one or two additional products that may be relevant to my needs.
As an experienced staff member with more than two decades tenure with the bank, the representative tried to explain the benefits of income protection products offered by the bank. The relevance of the product to a customer in his early twenties, without family or debts, was always going to be difficult to demonstrate but the representative, with customer interests at the forefront, showed what customer care is all about.
They spoke of the bank as having a "duty of care" to their customers and said they had a duty of care to tell me about the bank’s income protection products should I "god forbid" walk out of the branch and get hit by a car while crossing the road. I left my contact details with the representative so the bank could contact me and send me more details on income protection.
Needless to say, I took extra care crossing the road that afternoon. It’s been about six weeks since my visit to the branch and I am yet to receive any information from the bank. And I have been crossing many a road since my visit.
No credit to the counsellor
We paid off and cancelled our credit card on the phone the other day. The customer service guy said he wanted to transfer my wife to a ‘counsellor’ as he was very concerned. The ‘counsellor’ launched into a poorly-scripted spiel about how concerned the bank was for us in case we had a medical emergency or something and no credit card to support us in case things went wrong.
My wife had to tell this woman four times to cancel the card and put her back on to the other guy to finish the call. I felt so warm and fuzzy at their concern.
After a recent visit to a bank branch, I realised that banks were getting very serious about customer care. In addition to providing assistance with a routine transaction, a customer service representative ventured to discuss one or two additional products that may be relevant to my needs.
As an experienced staff member with more than two decades tenure with the bank, the representative tried to explain the benefits of income protection products offered by the bank. The relevance of the product to a customer in his early twenties, without family or debts, was always going to be difficult to demonstrate but the representative, with customer interests at the forefront, showed what customer care is all about.
They spoke of the bank as having a "duty of care" to their customers and said they had a duty of care to tell me about the bank’s income protection products should I "god forbid" walk out of the branch and get hit by a car while crossing the road. I left my contact details with the representative so the bank could contact me and send me more details on income protection.
Needless to say, I took extra care crossing the road that afternoon. It’s been about six weeks since my visit to the branch and I am yet to receive any information from the bank. And I have been crossing many a road since my visit.
No credit to the counsellor
We paid off and cancelled our credit card on the phone the other day. The customer service guy said he wanted to transfer my wife to a ‘counsellor’ as he was very concerned. The ‘counsellor’ launched into a poorly-scripted spiel about how concerned the bank was for us in case we had a medical emergency or something and no credit card to support us in case things went wrong.
My wife had to tell this woman four times to cancel the card and put her back on to the other guy to finish the call. I felt so warm and fuzzy at their concern.
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