Rich suffered through a nightmarish interaction with Bank of America's customer service department this morning. An erroneous check that his roommate had written to him (and then cancelled) was somehow subtracted from Rich's checking account twice, putting him in the red.
After fighting through the automated phone system to reach a live person (tip: next time, try http://www.gethuman.com/), Rich reached an operator who seemed completely unable to deviate from the script, ignoring everything he said. Somehow, she figured out that one of the charges didn't belong on the account, and removed it. Hooray! Mission accomplished! You'd think the story was over, but this was just the beginning of what BoA shockingly thinks is a great marketing opportunity.
Rich continues: "When she was done she immediately launched into a pitch for a pre-approved credit card. She talked for two minutes without a pause or a chance for me to interrupt. While she was talking, I thought to myself, 'I called to have BoA fix their mistake that overdrew my account, and they ended up trying to sell me something!' When I was finally able to reject the credit card offer, she wanted to know why. She then told me that I had been selected to participate in a survey and asked me to "please stay on the line" before quickly transferring me away without another word. I waited on the line for about 20 seconds, realized that there was no reason for me to do this, and hung up."
While there were a few mistakes made here by the BoA representative, the thing that disturbs me the most is that she seems to have no power to judge the circumstances of the call and adjust her actions accordingly. Many companies like BoA don't empower the people who answer their phones to truly interact with the caller to solve the problem. If BoA doesn't trust their own employees to make sound judgements that will delight their customers, why did they hire these individuals in the first place? I can just imagine the giant, threatening sign looming over each operator's cubicle, reminding her to "Stick to the script!" Check minus for BoA.
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2 comments:
That's so annoying! BoA is all about quantity over quality. I think most people use them just because they have so many ATMs.
Congrats on the new blog. I love it!
I totally picture the "Office Space" scenario where the receptionist chirps the same line over and over again. Most of the time, I end up listening to the sales pitches out of pity for the poor soul who's being forced to repeat them.
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