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A project to make businesses more aware of their customer experience, and how to fix it. By Mark Hurst. |
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Previous: Hotel soap combos | Main | Next: LiveStrong bracelets in hospitals
December 13, 2004 12:01 AM
Broken: Bank account names
An anonymous reader writes:
It really bugs me when companies make up cryptic internal names for things, like the type of bank account, and force the customer to deal with them. Why not list my accounts in plain English, like Checking and Savings?
Look at this on-line banking screenshot and guess which is my checking, and which is my savings account.
Answer: "FleetOne MMS" turns out to be my savings account (Money-Market Savings), and "Interest CK" is code for checking. The CK is a stretch abbreviation for checking, but the Interest led me toward thinking of it as a savings account.
I agree that this is broken, and I don't think Damien's solution is adequate.
It's perfectly fine to have fancy marketing names for products, but they should not create confusion. My bank, for example, BankOne, offers me "Choice One Checking" and "Money Market Savings".
I also use this banking service (now called Bank Of America Homelink). I have two accounts of the same type that I share with different family members, and I can only tell them apart by the account numbers. It would be nice if I could give them nicknames like "Bob/Jamila" and "Bob/Alex."
Better than my credit union.
Checking is "S1" and savings is "S8".
Get a "3" and a "THX" in there, and I'm all ready for the future!
Wells offers the change-the-name feature - but the default names are things like "Checking" and "Savings", which seems like the best of both worlds. (Particularly if you've got more than one checking account with them.)
>> "dystopian banking" = oxymoron
Nope.
"Utopian banking" = oxymoron (kind of)
"Dystopian banking" is more like a tautology.
What banks (and any company, really) need to realize is that what sets them apart from their competition, i.e. their marketing buzzwords, is more important to their CEO than to the customer. If I'm a customer, I already chose your company. Cut the crap and just tell it like it is.
> "Utopian banking" = oxymoron (kind of)
> "Dystopian banking" is more like a tautology.
I believe "dystopian banking" is brought to you by the Department of Redundancy Department--the same folks who brought you the hot water heater and Parks Canada Parcs.
.....If you know you have a savings and checking account then it's not that far of a stretch to figure MMS would be savings and CK would be check....especially when you went and signed up for the Checking Account I'm sure they told you it was a INTEREST BEARING account.
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Previous: Hotel soap combos | Main | Next: LiveStrong bracelets in hospitals
A number of Internet Banking solutions now let you put your own "Friendly Name" for each account - sounds like your bank should consider that feature for a future update.
[)amien
Posted by: Damien Guard at December 13, 2004 04:38 AM