Customer Service

[legalmoose]

Seems to be my week for customer service stuff.

In line at the bank, three tellers. One has a "next teller please" and appears to be arranging her cash stocks. Fine, but do that at 10, not at 9:30 when you have 6-8 customers in line, thanks. Second teller has a commercial customer (not at the commercial line, mind you) who is taking forever because he wants large amounts of small cash and coins. Third teller seems to just be slow, period. Commercial guy finishes up, and the teller puts up a "next teller please" sign and proceeds to do cash maintenance. Still 6-8 people in line. I'm at the head of the line finally, and the third teller comes free, but a manager comes in, sees the other two tellers are "busy" and grabs the free teller to do something. So now there are no tellers working with customers, out of three standing behind the glass.

Teller one comes back online and moves her sign and quickly handles my deposit. I mildly admonish her when she asks how I'm doing ("Fine, but I'd be doing better if y'all would handle your administrative tasks sometime when you don't have 6-8 people in line."). Then I decide, transaction completed (took all of maybe 20 seconds? a simple deposit* was all I was doing), I go up to the manager and let her have it over the piss-poor customer service. She handled it well, you can tell she's been trained on dealing with disagreeable customers, though a bit more sincerity in the apology and less perfunctoriness would have been appreciated.

* I don't use ATMs for deposits, ever since my first grand jury service where no less than three banks testified as to their ATM deposit handling procedures. Can't tell you much about the testimony, but suffice to say I will never, ever use an ATM to desposit anything. I want the live person handling it, confirming it, and giving me a slip certifying that they did so.

Comments

[susandennis]

Oh... I don't want to hear about problems with ATM deposits... My bank is a credit union in the next state. They have an ATM (it's there's and not someone else's right here in our cafeteria that is badge access only. Please tell me it's ok to use... Please?

[legalmoose]

Checks are mostly okay, at least there's something trackable there, so it can eventually be found and credited. But never, ever, ever, ever, ever, under any circumstances deposit cash. If there's a dispute, it's your word against the teller, and guess who the bank is going to believe?

[susandennis]

Whew... Thanks. Yep.. Only checks... And I log onto the credit union when I get back to my desk to ensure the deposit has been recorded in my account. Whew. Thanks.

I have always wondered what happens when I tell it to give me $100 and it gives me $80. In more than 30 years of using them (yep, I remember the first one I ever saw - I was a newspaper reporter and it was my big story of the day), I've never had this happen but I still wonder.

[legalmoose]

You immediately report it, they have to do a cash audit, etc. But basically it goes down to a she said/it said situation, and again, who's the bank gonna believe?

[eyow.livejournal.com]

Immediately hold it up in front of the camera (don't all of those things have cameras?), then call the bank and report it and tell them to look at the tape. ??

[susandennis]

That's a pretty cool idea but wouldn't you know it.. My ATM is the only one in the free world with no camera!!! I am keeping that trick in mind if/when this every happens at one that does, tho.

[eyow.livejournal.com]

Really? I swear, even the little ones in 7-11s have them, so that's just...weird. :P

I don't know though - although "past performance is no guarantee of future success", I've never heard of anyone not getting the right amount of money from an ATM withdrawal. Yet. :O

On an only slightly related note...I miss being able to get $5 or $10 from an ATM. When did that go away? Or am I dating myself here?

[susandennis]

Well, as long as we're fillin' up the Moose's journal :)

My ATM is in a cafeteria secured by card key access at work (Microsoft). They have all the pictures of us they can handle, I guess.

And... Yes, you are so dating yourself. $5, $10's out of an ATM? Were the 70's good for you? Ha...

But I can beat that... At one time, I worked on an ATM that spit out change - yes, literal coins. I still have some of the marketing materials I wrote about it. The only bank that really went in for them was that green bank in Canada - can't remember the name of it. They were only out there for about 3 years. IBM made them and then Diebol bought and killed 'em ...

[jss]

At the (then) First of America bank at the corner of East University and South University in Ann Arbor, circa 1987, some bozo loaded the $10 hopper of the ATM with $20s, royally screwing the bank. The line of people trying to get $20 for their $10 withdrawal was two blocks long, from what I recall. (I don't know if the bank wrote off the losses or went back and tried to debit the $10 additional per transaction for the people who got cash out before the hopper drained.)

[discord35.livejournal.com]

I go out of my way to avoid ATM deposits as well, although it was sheer paranoia on my part, I suppose. Thanks for feeding that. :-)

[legalmoose]

Fear mongering are us. I am a politician, after all. ;)

[draco-kc.livejournal.com]

At least you have the option of making an ATM deposit.

My checking account is at a back three-quarters across the state. (It's the same bank I've had since high school. I haven't changed due to inertia, plus the fact that there's a couple of free services I get from that bank that none of the local ones are willing to provide without additional charges, if at all.) There are no local branches (well, there is one forty minutes down the highway in another city, but that's usually not a feasible option, giving my need to work during banking hours). So, I don't have the option of a face-to-face transaction when I want to make a deposit.

I don't make deposits often (only a handful of times each year, for tax refunds, rebate checks, and the like). I used to be able to make deposits at ATM's, but starting two or three years ago, they no longer were able to accept ATM deposits. (They claimed it was because of new software they were running on their end.)

So, now, I want to deposit something, I have to mail it across the state to the bank! Not the most comforting state of affairs.

[eyow.livejournal.com]

Yeah, me too. My bank's actually in Texas, and I've always had to mail deposits. They do, however, have excellent customer service, and I've been with them for more than ten years, and NEVER had a deposit lost. And I make a lot of deposits. :O

[gnumoose.livejournal.com]

Not even checks in ATM. I hope that you have a bank that doesn't charge you tellers fees.

I'm pretty lucky with the bank I have here in Philly. They keep the lines moving, are pleasant, call you by name and don't totally dick you around on fees. $3 a month for me.

I think Commerce is expanding that way, if so, run don't walk down there to move your account.

Reminds me...

[js-vegas.livejournal.com]

Reminded me of when I was in England studying abroad...I went to a "free" government clinic because I sliced my finger while making dinner...went up to the window...and the nurse said..."oh its tea time...here is som gauze...just hold it there till I get back so I can check you in." I was like WTF!

JS

[plato4013.livejournal.com]

That is unacceptable. I would have been pissed, especially since I use to work for a bank, though never in the branch. Obviously that manager didn’t get enough training since when she saw all those people in line she needed to get people out there to help them.

The new ATMs have a scanner which puts an image of the check on the receipt which is a great backup. I have a friend who deposited a check and somehow it got lost and the bank charged her outrageous fees and asked her to give them a copy of the check…. It was a mess. While in an English class a kid told us how he would take money from deposits if the person wrote in the wrong amount. Scary…

I have to do a deposit for work soon, and I can’t stand how I’ll come in and the tellers will be chit chatting and they will wait until they are done with their conversation before helping me.