Tuesday, June 28, 2011

An ounce of kindness...*edit*

I work retail.  I've been in retail for a better part of my life (sounds better than twenty-five years! LOL).  At the moment I've been working at the "big blue box" for almost five years.  I previously worked at the "big orange box" for eleven.  I've done phone centers and a couple of other home centers (anyone remember Rickel's?).  I do customer service...I am customer service.  It's in my blood.  I know the good from the great and will call out the truly awful.  My bank made the mistake of treating the wrong person like shit today.

We use People's Bank for our checking and savings accounts.  We have for a better part of a decade.  We ran into a massive issue with our accounts this morning.  The first time I had called, I had spoken to a girl, Rebecca, who helped me out and answered all of my questions...nicely I might add.

We find out later that we need a fax number for the bank in order to rectify our problem.  I called back.  I got a guy this time (he mumbled his name, so I never got it).  I told him my situation and what I needed.  He put me on hold, and came back with the exact information I already had.  I told him he must have misunderstood me...I just need the fax number for the X dept to give to this person.  What does he tell me?

"They do a lot of business with us.  They should already have our number."

Helloooo?  If they are asking for your number, they obviously don't have it.  So I asked again, a little dumbfounded at this point.  Can you give it to me anyway, just in case?  Was he afraid I was going to fax naked pictures to them?

He repeated the "They should already have our number on file." line and curtly told me to have a good day.

OK, if I was angry and pitching a fit maaaaybe he'd have a reason to dismiss me like that.  I was too stunned by his snottiness to be angry.

If he had said simply, "I'm sorry, but policy forbids me to give you the fax number to that department." I would have been fine with that.  I just hate being treated like shit by some piss ant making ten dollars an hour.  I've done your job...being nice and helpful is what you're paid to do.

I won't formally complain (although I did hash tag them on Twitter and bitch in 140 characters!), but I do know the tellers at my branch well enough that I will say something the next time I'm in.

I hope he gets a slow cashier the next time he's running late.  Have a little customer service karma bite him in the ass!

*edit*  Just found out they had slapped us with a couple of $35 overdraft fees, adding insult to injury.  Called customer service, spoke to Marjorie, being refunded in a couple of days.  That my friends is what helping people is all about. :o)

2 comments:

  1. Wow. That's customer dis-service at it's best... :(

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  2. I honestly think that banks and credit card companies have terrible customer service in general. I know I too work customer service and can identify when you say I AM CUSTOMER SERVICE.

    Case in point. I needed to get a hold of the auto loan department at Chase. The phone number is NOT on the website. I called the credit card company because I have a chase credit card (not a chase bank account tho). The number they gave me for the autoloan department had been disconnected. After a couple more tries I finally just called the number for the bank...but geez I just needed to talk to a real person for like 5 minutes to clear up a question I had about a double payment I made...seriously it took me over an hour to get to the right person. I have also had tons of trouble with US Bank...whom use to be my bank. Urg. I left them because their customer service stunk the worse of them all. :/

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