Do you ever ask yourself if anyone really cares?
Although I try to avoid being cynical and to give the benefit of the doubt a recent experience almost convinced me that no-one really does.
It all started when I found a late payment and interest charge on my credit card statement. I was concerned as I knew I had paid in time. However, I checked my bank statement to make certain. Sure enough, the payment had left my account 4 days before the payment was due.
Naturally I phoned the credit card company who told me that there was nothing they could do. The the charges would stand, because my payment was a day late! I tried to reason with them, but they told me that I must sort it out with my bank.
So I phoned my bank. Guess what they told me? You’ve got it! They had paid the money when instructed. It was the credit card company’s fault it had not been credited in time and not their’s and thus there was absolutely nothing they could do!
However, after speaking to them I paid that month's balance. As it was about due and I didn’t want a repeat performance, I requested a fast payment to eliminate any risk whatsoever. They told me the money would be in my credit card account in 2 hours.
The next day, I phoned the credit card company to check my balance and they told me that they had not received the money. It was now too late for regular payment and so the only way I could be sure to avoid another late payment penalty was to pay immediately, over the phone. I duly did, on the understanding that I had to phone for a refund (yes – I had to phone!) once the original payment had been credited.
When I did later I learned they had still not credited the payment. Annoyed, I insisted upon a three way conversation to find out why. This established that my bank had failed to include the credit card number with the payment – something that:-
- They are obliged to do for fast payments;
- Was available from past payments and that I had checked they had.
Powerless I checked a few days later and found they had still not received my first payment. So I went online and found my bank had reversed payment the day after. Yet no-one ever notified me about this! Surely as a customer that is the least I can expect when:-
- I request a fast payment; and
- The bank is aware of the circumstances of the payment and know to whom it is made, and the likely possible consequences!
Conspiracy theorists and anti-capitalists could have a field day with this!
Leaving that aside, however, the whole story illustrates perfectly how disengaged people are in their work. Why?
- Neither institution was prepared to take any interest in my problem to begin with. (The person at the credit card company actually treated me as if I was a nuisance and a criminal!)
- The rules are rules mentality. Rules dictate everything. People have very little discretion when they are broken. I did eventually manage to get the penalty reversed but they made it quite clear to me that this was being done under sufferance and a record made on my account because I was being difficult about it, and not simply because the clock had rolled past the bewitching hour. The payment was literally only a few hours late!
- The person who handled the telephone transaction in the first place didn’t care enough to do a proper job.
- The person who processed the reversal didn’t care enough to consider the consequences or to inform me that there had been a problem.
- Both companies gave me the standard message “Your call is monitored for training purposes.” Yet if anybody listened nobody cared enough to call me or to ensure they had dealt with my issue satisfactorily.
Now the really sad thing about all this is that I don’t suppose my experience would have been any different if I dealt with any other bank. Yet how different the experience might have been if:
- The bank really believed that its customers are the ones who keep it in business and promoted good customer service rather than rigid adherence to the rules.
- The bank did everything it could to ensure employee engagement.
- The bank had employee ownership and the employees acted as owners.
The question is, “Have you fallen into this trap? Has your organisation?”
If so, you know what to do about it!