FAO: J. G. S.
c/o The Bank
I hope this brief message finds you well and that you take the time to read it. I have been a customer of The Bank for many years but I find myself thinking about leaving. My level of frustration with your organization continues to grow, primarily as a result of your customer service and employee retention policies. I recognize that these are a means to increase revenue but I find them frustrating and short sighted. I will enumerate just a few examples.
- Greeters at the door. If you are going to have a greeter positioned at the door saying, “Welcome in,” there should not be a line to speak with a teller. This is poor allocation of resources and costs both you and me money. Please let the greeters work at Walmart. I prefer to work with banking professionals when I visit The Bank and do not mind waiting to exchange greetings with the teller who is assisting me.
- Don’t give scripts to your employees. It turns them into automatons and the words, spoken by both the teller and by me become meaningless to them, background noise, and static. “In an effort to do things right the first time which account would you like this deposit in?” and “In order to ensure superior customer service is there anything else I can do for you today?” and “On the pin pad please choose the method with which you would like to receive your receipt.”
- Despite having the desired account marked on the deposit slip and replying to the teller when asked, my funds have wound up in the wrong account on more than one occasion. He wasn’t listening.
- “Superior customer service?” Come on. No one talks like that. With the exception of all the young employees in your branches – they all speak like that. I can only surmise that this is because they are told to.
- I appreciate the automation you are using in an attempt to streamline a transaction but, when the teller has to instruct 8 out of 10 customers that they need to push another button on the pin pad and the customer then has to peruse the choices prior to selection, the flow of the transaction is interrupted and you have provided a stumbling block instead of a timesaver.
- Invest in your employees. I notice a high turnover of young employees in the branches that I visit regularly. There will often be four tellers in the windows and three of them have another employee looking over their shoulders. I appreciate training but if 75% of your customer service staff is perpetually in training then your turnover is too high. Are these kids on the fast-track to management positions? Are they moving up? Are they leaving for better paying jobs at Kroger or CVS? Spend more time training them, pay them a bit more, show them a path for advancement. Most importantly, empower them to speak for themselves and to represent The Bank in a professional manner. You will, in this way cultivate loyalty and long term employees who know how to comport themselves professionally and deal with the public. These are the employees who will become long term assets to The Bank, not just short term disposables.
In summary, what I am saying is that I would appreciate being treated like a valued customer of The Bank. I would appreciate interacting with professional bankers, not employees who I will seldom see more than two or three times before they are gone to a higher paying, more satisfying position at The Shoe Barn.
Best regards,
tnkerr-Writing Prompts and Practice 
Well done! I’m thankful now that I have not ran into the problems you describe at the bank where I deal, sounds terribly frustrating.
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Customer service. Where “bad” is the new “good.” My blood pressure goes up by 50% every time I have to deal with them. ANY of them.
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Actually, my bank branch is pretty good, overall. Customer service at ANY company you reach by telephone is another thing entirely.
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