As someone who works and lead projects in a customer focus industry. Today I have my enlightening moment about the saying"You are only as good as my last bad experience" and I would like to share with Monzo makers as both advises and discussion topics, because I truly believe that as core competence, customer services, should be on the top 3 for a bank which vow to make changes.
This morning I took a trip to a traditional high street bank to deposit a cheque (yes we still have these thing, shocking!). It was not a usual cheque, as the payer is in US, and they instructed their UK bank to pay me in GBP. The cheque has all the information you need to process it: Payer account information, payee name, amount, signature. The differences of this check is that it was not the standard UK cheque format. I assume is understandable, I mean itâs an authentic cheque with right information, it might take some checking, but it can be done.
Or so I thought. Here I went to the branch, wait in the queue, the lobby customer adviser tried to guide me to machine payment, but I said it might not be machine readable. Here I was standing in front of the casherâs counter. She took a look the cheque, and her eyebrows squeeze together: âSir, this is not depositeable as it didnât have payer bank account details.â
âOh its all written there, it is just require some manual input as the issuer is in the USâ I reply
âHmm, I donât know, my machine wonât read it and it only allow me to input Euroâ she insist
âNo No No, its a sterling bankâ I said
I can tell she was confused, she reached out to her colleague who was dealing with another customer at the same time. The colleague gave some vague reply. And I was continue stuck.
After a few deadens trial, she frozen, and said âhmm, it might need further checking as it is non standard but our helpline closed today so it needs to be next Tuesday, bank holiday you know. Or you can find somewhere else can help you.â
I was frozen, my mouth said ok, but my mind asking âDid she just kick me out quietly?â I know its 12:20 and the branch close at 1pm, but surely she wouldnât kick a customer out?
I left the counter, trying to seek helps from the customer adviser from the lobby, all I was looking for was someone to help to me to
- Understand whether they know how to process an old fashion cheque manually
- If so how this can be done
But her reply was shocking âIf the cashier saw it and they canât process it, as they were senior cashier, we donât think we can, you have two option, contact the issuer or go to a bank can help you.â
Am I just got kicked out by a bank I set up joint account with my partner since we were first married? She didnât said it, but it felt like it. Also, why I felt the way they treatied me as if they were dealing with a fraud criminal? They certainly canât wait to send me away!
WAS I WRONG?
I wasnât, because I am sure this is deportable and I did it using the same check with another bank belongs to the same group !
With disbelieve, I went to another bank with whom I still had an unclosed saving account with. They looked at the cheque, did some check with branch manager, apologized for manual handling takes some time, and five minutes later, I went out with a passbook marked âcheque deposit, ÂŁxxxxxâ
This is surreal and crazy. The âother bankâ was just a different brand of the same group!
A guess my point is as follows
- Always emphasis training to your staff on the process for unusual scenarios, they are what makes a difference between good and terrible experience
- Try to think why this customer want to deposit it today, communicate with them and understand what do they want from this experience, the first bank could have asked âSir, I am not familiar with this, do you need to deposit today or if it is not too trouble would you be able to come back next working day?â or âSir, I was not able to handle this as we are ready to close for today, but there is another branch open till later and they might be able to helpâ
- Finally, never ever suggest your customer âgo to another shopâ. Imagine John Lewis said âGo buy the curtain somewhere elseâ or McD sends you to KFC. If you disown your customers, they will abandon you pretty quick.
In this world about customer services, we canât just benchmark ourselves with our peers, we need to also look across industry. If their good ways to learn from someone that is genuinely good, then we need to know how did they do it, can see if we can do it ourselves.
That saids, I have more confident and determination to want Monzo to success, its a Long Shot, but we will kick the butt of traditional banks.