While all about us are whingeing on about bank bonuses and level four qualifications, the basic expectation of treating customers not only fairly, but with respect and courtesy, seems to be falling by the wayside.
Take a simple example: a borrower who clears his or her mortgage, redeeming the loan, most probably the most expensive financial expense of their lives, expects the lender to formally notify them that that debt burden has been lifted and wish them the best in the future.
For most ordinary people, that is the least they would expect from a bank or building society that they had had a close working relationship for about 25 years.
Even a little card wishing them well, and hinting that in future if they want to invest or save then the door is always opened.
If the experience one reader had recently with Cheltenham & Gloucester, the former building society now part of Lloyds Banking Group, is anything to go by, then we are drifting in to a level of bad corporate manners not seen since the middle ages.
However, given the normal civility of the group, one can only take the behaviour of the mortgage lender this time as an oversight.
The story is simply that a borrower recently redeemed his mortgage and, as expected, sat back expecting a formal letter to drop through his letter box informing him that he was now the proud owner of his home and thanking him for his custom.
After a few weeks of waiting, fearing that something had gone amiss, the borrower went in to a branch office and enquired what was going on.
The young front office clerk, as polite as they come, expressed her horror at the corporate behaviour, and put him on to the Scottish call centre.
The young man at the end of the telephone took down all the details, asked a few simple questions, then promised that a formal letter would be sent through. To his word, a few days later one duly arrived. Whatever happened to customer service?
Treating customers fairly is not just about not flogging them dodgy products, or seeing them just as savings fodder feeding a hungry cash cow.
It is also about being friendly, courteous, transparent and honest; doing the best for them and pointing them in the right direction when seeking information.
As silly and old-fashioned as this may seem, doing the right thing for customers may not only lead to them doing more future business, but equally passing on their children, and their children’s children to the same business, as the best vote of confidence in the way they have been treated over the years any business can hope for – a testimonial of trust and professionalism.
Maybe this is one for the City regulator to consider, marking the cards of firms caught in a customer service Mystery Shopping exercise.
Hal Austin
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