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Part 2: A bank customer experience
Oct 11, 2006
Last week I told the story of an unfortunate customer experience I had with my bank of ten years, which gave me several reasons to close my account. (If you missed it, you can read it here.)
And now, the flip side of the experience. Starting from where I left off in the previous column... "Later that same day I opened a new account at a new bank. It was as good an experience as this had been bad."
Here's what happened.
I went to a nearby branch of a bank known for its good customer experiences and asked to open an account. I felt especially good about going through the process, because it was past 6:00 p.m. and would stay open until 8:00 p.m. - in other words, it was open during exactly the hours I'd want to conduct banking. My old bank was generally open only during "bankers' hours", closing around 4 p.m., when the bankers wanted to go home. (Bankers' hours, indeed.)
My new account rep, who I'll call Jenny, was professional and friendly, and as we went through the steps to open the account (identification, signature card, etc.), we struck up a conversation about how she came to work for this bank.
"I was so fed up with [big national bank]", she said. "They were nice at first, but then they started charging new fees, and messing up my account, and claiming it was my mistake. So I closed my account there and decided to try this bank out. The person who signed me up for my account here was so good, so friendly, I thought, 'This is so much better', and decided I wanted to work here."
Jenny told me that because of her initial customer experience with her present bank, she actually changed her college major to finance, later applied for a job at the bank, and was hired. She's been there ever since and continues to sing the bank's praises.
"I go into [mega-corporate global bank] sometimes just to see what it's like," she says. "People who work there don't smile. They hardly even want to look at you."
I'll grant that this is early in my time as a customer of this bank, though I have no reason to doubt that it will continue to be good. But my main takeaways from this initial experience are two facts:
1. The hours - open during evenings and weekends - were an immediate flag that this is a bank that does things differently. Bankers' hours have been transformed into customers' hours. Note that this isn't any flashy, faddy, cutesy feature or come-on - rather, it's a basic delivery of a key unmet customer need: better hours. Basics like these are the true innovations in customer experience.
2. The customer experience was delivered by someone who understood it because she had experienced it directly herself. In fact, she joined the company because of her customer experience there. This - "recruiting through customer experience" - is one of the best signs of a customer-centric organization.
Any company, any executive, can make use of these takeaways: the basics are often all customers want, and hiring good, enthusiastic people is an excellent way of delivering them.
Moreover, it's best to create the customer experience after having been through it yourself, either directly or through observation of customers. Try opening your own account; or watch some customers go through it, without any direction on your part, and listen to their open-ended feedback. Once again, the basics - simple, old-fashioned watching and listening - are the most effective tools we have as practitioners.
- - -
See also: Part 1 of A bank customer experience
And the name of this wonderful new bank rhymes with ...?
There could be a whole This Is Broken section on places whose hours don't match when they are needed. I just moved out of DFW. A city with traffic like you wouldn't believe where an average commute for anyone who can't afford a $4000 mortgage is near or over an hour.
When do the DryCleaners open and close? Open at 8 (you're already at work). Close at 6:30 (you're not home yet.) So, take your stuff in on the weekend - they aren't open Sunday. So the DryCleaner, a business built on people too busy to iron and wash thier own stuff, isn't open when people who have jobs can go. (No drycleaners anywhere along my :40 commute were.) I could deal with a drycleaner closed say, Tuesday, but Sunday? Sunday means I can't drop off Saturday and pick up until NEXT Saturday.
The City I just moved out of also required you to come in in person with a driver's liscense to set up water service (they didn't actually write anything down from the DL.) I had to take off work on vacation to come in during 8:30-4:30 as a one hour lunch isn't enough to drive :40 each way... I don't even want to talk about trying to get a Garage Sale Permit.
The community college down the street has a bookstore. It's only open 10-2 each day. Because the working adults who take community college classes at night and on weekends obviously don't need text books or supplies...
At least the pharmacy is open later.
can you please give the names of the 2 banks from your experience. thanks.
HAVING WORKED IN ADVERTISING ALL MY LIFE I CAN TELL YOU THE SAME THING APPLIES THERE. GO IN TO A SUCCESSFUL AGENCY AND THER'S AN INSTANT BUZZ - PEOPLE ARE LAUGHING, MUCKING ABOUT, ENJOYING LIFE AND IT SHOWS IN THE ADS THEY CRETE. WALK IN TO A BAD AGENCY AND IT'S LIKE BEING IN A MORGE, EVERYBODY IS FRIGHTENED OF THEIR OWN SHADOW. AT THE GOOD AGENCY NOBODY EVER WANTS TO GO HOME, AT THE BAD, THEY CAN'T WAIT TO LEAVE. THE SECRET OF THE GOOD 'UN, IF I KNEW I'D BOTTLE IT. TC.
While I appreciate that you didn't mention the bank, I'm guessing they have red shirt day on Friday. Crazy thing is, I could probably start a second business (dry cleaning, as mentioned before) and ONLY be open from 5-9 a.m., and have a fantastically happy clientele.
Such a great article! Please sell us the name of your new bank! I've often thought that many of the people who go into banking do so because they want to work at a job with standard bankers hours, not because they have a passion for finance. Nothing is more infuriating than sneaking out of work early, racing thru traffic, running up to the bank's door at 4:59PM, only to have an employee already turning the lock because they can't wait for the whistle to blow. And, what a great concept about recruiting! What if apartments recruited from and employed happy residents? Wouldn't that be a great way to attract new residents? And what if car dealers recruited and employed salespeople who love cars, not just ones who love to sell?
If I had to guess, I'd say he's describing Commerce Bank, which serves the Northeast US. I've had excellent customer service at this bank, and they are open long hours - usually until 8 during the week, as well as some hours on Saturday and Sunday.
Prof. Frances X. Frei from Harvard Business school writes often on customer service relationships, and teaches a course on Managing Service Organizations.
She's done an extensive case study of Commerce Bank, and it's a fascinating analysis of how Commerce successfully entered a highly competitive market (retail banking in the Northeast) by differentiating on customer service.
What's most interesting is her discussion of how Commerce can afford to pay for better service.
A brief overview of her reserach is here: http://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/4267.html
Now can someone please tell the Design Council (http://www.designingdemand.org.uk/Case_Studies) that unless they'd like to change their name to "Product Design Council" that it's stories like these that illustrate the true potential for modern business design? [because in businesses like banking, and other information/service enterprises the product 'is' the experience]