On January 18th, we received a letter from our bank, the ANZ, telling us there had been an unauthorised attempt to access one of our accounts. The letter provided a code that represented the entity that had tried to debit the account.
Mystified, we rang the bank using a number on the letter.
This number was the bank's regular call centre. The person I contacted redirected me to another person. That's when a really 'interesting' conversion took place.
For the sake of brevity (I was on the phone a total of 40 long minutes!), let me explain the essence of the feedback this gentleman (coincidentally named Steve) provided. He said he couldn't work out what the code was referring to, and he couldn't refer me to his supervisor and wouldn't refer me to someone else. Yes, you read correctly, he wouldn't pass me on to anyone else.
In stunned disbelief, I then asked to be put through to a formal customer complaint area. Steve said he would do this, but in fact he decided to redirect me to another person (named Anthony) who had more knowledge of the issue. After finishing my conversation with Anthony, I informed him I wanted to make a complaint about Steve's attitude and lack of willingness to help.
Today - 1st February - I received a call from James in the customer complaints area of ANZ. That's TWO WEEKS since the incident. I asked James why the call had taken so long - he explained there was a big backlog of calls they needed to get through.
So what can organisations learn from this experience? Try these:
- Don't contact customers if you can't back up and support the issue that is the reason for the contact
- Take ownership of the customer's problem - even if you don't have the required skills/knowledge, make sure you put the customer in the safe hands of someone who will see things through
- If you receive a complaint - act quickly to get back to the customer. Never, never wait two weeks!If your customer complaints area is getting behind in responding to complaints, then provide additional resources to that work area!
I asked James whether I could speak with Steve's supervisor. He said no. I asked if I could get a copy of the email that apparently would be sent to Steve's supervisor. He said no. When I explained to James I was not happy with HIS response, he said, 'Well, we're the customer complaints area and there's nothing else we can do'.
So that's customer service?
