Comments on: A lesson from Bank of America — Keeping a customer perspective

By: Steven Bradley

Steven Bradley — Mon, 17 Dec 2007 05:43:20 +0000

Are they really that stupid? I do agree with your advice in general for retailers, but think about it. Bank of America is essentially stealing money from your account every month and you still thanked them in this post.

Maybe they’re not as stupid as it first appears.

By: Joe Buhler

Joe Buhler — Sat, 15 Dec 2007 20:34:20 +0000

Agree with your comment about the stupidity of BofA and most of their brethren out there, they’re one of a kind!
For that very reason I never enter into any auto payments but use reminders for manual monthly payments. Remember the Milk is a great web based tool for that.

By: Small Business Marketing

Small Business Marketing — Sat, 15 Dec 2007 00:12:21 +0000

One of the usability tests a large computer company had was to let a group of 3rd graders use whatever they were trying to test. If it passed they considered it almost user friendly. However, the ultimate test was to give it to a group of their executives to use. If they could use it and not have problems, then it was considered acceptable for prime time usage.

I suggest that you write a letter to the Corporate VP of BofA in charge of Customer Relations and make that suggestion.

Whatever you do, don’t think that by changing banks it will get better. Wells Fargo did something like that to me and they keep doing it to my significant other.

By: Glenn

Glenn — Fri, 14 Dec 2007 20:09:49 +0000

Andy,
You have brought a real life situation home for the web developer. That was a nice Wake Up call from the customer’s perspective. Of course I have to say, you aren’t the only BOA Customer to think they are insanely stupid. My parent’s complained about BOA’s insistence on charging late fees even if a payment was received at a BOA branch on the Due date, and it didn’t matter if it was in cash and in person.

(In fact I received an Credit Card offer from them yesterday that I promptly shredded)
(Bad Customer Service costs more than a single customer or a single transaction it costs a possible lifetime of transactions and could cost transactions of whomever that person influences)

Thanks for the real life saga!

Glenn

By: Michael Clark

Michael Clark — Fri, 14 Dec 2007 19:43:03 +0000

Not to be cynical, but I wouldn’t be surprised if you closed your accounts, then the next month when they try to steal money from you and can’t, you’ll be hit with an enormous non-payment penalty that they’ll report to the credit reporting agencies.

By: CSalomon-Lee

CSalomon-Lee — Fri, 14 Dec 2007 17:48:58 +0000

LOL – I don’t bank with BOA but had some similar issues with Citibank. There is no way for me to stop getting their emails every month since I no longer have an account, but guess where I have to go to turn this off? Yep – my online account.

I’ve written to them TWICE, called several times to no avail. Check out the full deets on my blog:
http://prmeetsmarketing.wordpress.com/2007/10/30/where-dell-succeeds-c itibank-fails/

By: Steven

Steven — Fri, 14 Dec 2007 16:48:56 +0000

I hate BofA, they suck as a bank. I’ve had them several years ago, needless to say, my account was opened for less than a week. Yeah, its that bad…

By: Nick

Nick — Fri, 14 Dec 2007 16:37:41 +0000

Click on bill pay, then payments, then automatic payments. I think it would be in there…?

By: Greg Howlett

Greg Howlett — Fri, 14 Dec 2007 16:25:50 +0000

Thanks Adrienne. I will pull out my dictionary and fix my own perspective.

By: Andy Beal

Andy Beal — Fri, 14 Dec 2007 16:22:11 +0000

@Adrienne – good eye – we’ve all made those mistakes. The article has been updated.

By: Adrienne Doss

Adrienne Doss — Fri, 14 Dec 2007 16:16:30 +0000

This is a good article, but the use of “prospective” instead of “perspective” throughout the story is making my inner Grammar Cop all twitchy. O.o

By: Jason Falls

Jason Falls — Fri, 14 Dec 2007 16:02:20 +0000

Hey Greg,

I had a related story about banking and customer service earlier this week at the link below. It’s not about the online experience but is more broadly based on the talk value of a standard commodity of banking. It relates to your story because BOA did something exceptional to generate talk … in your case exceptionally wrong. My hope is that they’ll read your post, my post and turn the tide.

Thanks for sharing the story.

http://www.socialmediaexplorer.com/2007/12/11/why-corporations-dont-un derstand-sharing/