Would you believe it: Bank Accounts!

Application formAs the launch of my “would you believe it!” blogs, here’s my first story of how some companies are still way behind the curve on delivering customer value.

Today I finally got round to opening a new savings account for one of my children. So with all the necessary documents in hand off we trotted to our local mutual building society branch (the UK’s largest) where a very attentive and customer friendly clerk told me that “unfortunately we’ve run out of application forms for that account… but we can send you one in the post and you should have it in a couple of days”. Then, when complete I could “come back to the branch and complete the process”.

In this day and age of on-line applications, why isn’t it possible for a major organisation to print such a document on demand that could be completed in the branch and the account be activated straight away? It’s not rocket science is it?

And if that had been the only thing we’d gone into town for today (as it turned out, it wasn’t because my son and I were having an afternoon out together) then the value added time would have been zero and the non-value added time (from the customer view) up to 90 minutes! I could have gone next door to another bank and no doubt opened a similar account immediately – and would have if it wasn’t that my other children all like to go into that branch every now and then to check on their accounts.

Customer service counts – and adding significant customer value counts even more. Think about customer added value people and get moving into the 21st century! Many improvements in many businesses can be very little cost and the impact to its customers significant!

Better that than having customers walk into the arms of your competitors, surely?

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