Kill Me Now

When I was creating my new company, I had to go to the bank. I had to partake in that exciting process called “opening a bank account”. In a completely fake and made-up survey, an overwhelming number of people rated “going to the bank” as being on the excitement scale somewhere between “getting a root canal” and “watching the Kardashians”.

First, though, I tried to open a new business account over the phone. Oh no sir, we couldn’t possibly do this over the phone. You need to be in-person at the bank.

So all the shareholders of our company (read: my wife and I) went to the bank, to meet with our “Dedicated Personal Exclusive One-on-One Financial Representative”.

…..who then did the entire process on the phone.

For the next hour, my wife and I sat in silence, while our “Dedicated Personal Exclusive One-on-One Financial Representative” stared at her computer screen with a telephone cradled to her ear, creating the bank account with the help of some dude on the telephone who was at a help centre somewhere.

My wife and I didn’t need to be there for that entire hour. We were ignored. We sat in silence, staring at each other, staring at the wall, and staring at our phones. Speaking of which, we shared this text exchange:

Customer service doesn’t need to be this painful. Clearly it is possible for the bank to do the majority of this process on the phone or online, and then invite the customer to come down for the last five minutes of necessary in-person signing of forms.

I don’t blame our “Dedicated Personal Exclusive One-on-One Financial Representative”. I think it’s simply the result of a terrible customer service system. A ridiculously easy-to-fix terrible customer service system.

Do you make sure your customers' experiences are enjoyable, or at least tolerable? Sometimes you can't avoid long processes, especially in industries with specific regulations. But if necessary parts of the process are long and tedious, are you trying to make them less tedious?

Or, do you waste an hour of your customer's life…..when they could be doing something far more productive (like, watching the Kardashians)?