Have you ever started to do business with a company and then changed your mind due to the initial experience? I’ve just been going through a change of bank for a business account and frankly the experience has made me seriously question the choice of bank.
For a small business account, I’m really not too concerned about the interest rate, or even the bank charges, but I do want to be reassured that the organisation managing my money is reliable, responsive, pays attention to detail and has good processes in place.
The experience to date has included:
Essential forms not sent to me to transfer funds and set up online banking
Bank manager not aware that the forms hadn’t been sent
Returned forms going missing, despite being sent to the right address
Transfer of funds taking 7-10 working days
I wonder if the irony of this poor first experience has even occurred to anyone at the bank – from the small business manager up to the bonus earning ‘elite’ in the high-rise London office? I also wonder how many other businesses shoot themselves in the foot in the same way – delivering such a poor initial experience that the potential customer is put off trading with them?
We’ve found that our mystery shopping programme which measures customer experience has helped several local businesses make significant changes to the way they treat new and existing customers, winning them more positive feedback and more importantly improving their bottom-line performance.
Cheers,
Gill