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Bank of America to its 270,000 employees: Be nice
Bank of America had the worst score for customer satisfaction compared with its national rivals. As a group, they all lagged behind credit unions and regional banks.
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The CEO of Bank of America, Brian Moynihan, has sent a letter -- an actual letter -- to each and every one of his 270,000 employees. With the new postal rates that's more than $100,000 in stamps alone. So what was worth all that print? It boils down to this: Bank of America's customer service, the boss says, just has to get better.
Bank of America had the worst score of the four major commercial banks in a recent survey by the American Customer Satisfaction Index. David VanAmburg is managing director of the index. He says the letter to employees is a good first step to improving customer service. But beyond that there needs t be a plan. "There needs to be something that says in very concrete terms the things we need to do," he said.
Bank of America hasn't announced specifics on the plan to improve customer service. But Moynihan did say in his letter that it will improve communication with customers. This isn't just a problem with Bank of America. The other major commercial banks -- JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo, and Citibank -- also scored lower in customer satisfaction than credit unions and regional banks.
VanAmburg says this is not surprising based on the last 20 years of data. "Basically the smaller you get the higher the level of customer satisfaction. There is a direct correlation with how customers are perceiving that they are being cared for."
Colin Shaw is the founder of the customer service consulting firm Beyond Philosophy. He says one way to tell if Bank of America is serious is to look at the schedules of its senior managers. "How much time do they actually spend with customers? How much time do they spend in branches? Or are the senior executive's time spent in internal meetings?"
Shaw says the bonus system also has to change. "If all of the senior execs and all of the senior managers had 100 percent of their bonuses built around the achievement of customer satisfaction, do you think that customer satisfaction would increase? Of course it would."
Bank of America employees will find out about the new plan at a companywide event on Thursday.
oh yeah, the true test of whether Brian Moynihan really means it? If the office of the CEO adequatly answers every letter it receives. My experience is that banker CEOs don't answer surface mail. A big NO NO if you want to improve your customer satisfaction. No sense spending over $100,000 on stamps if your CEO office circular files the incoming snail mail.
BofA has a customer experience problem because their marketing pukes cooked up all these sophisticated trick fees, but did not have an adequate plan to deal with the backlash. BofA needs to fix how they treat loyal customers who get trapped with these trick fees. A bank needs to build trust to to get customers to deposit money with them (they need the deposits on hand to do business... the gov't requires this). BofA picked on my daughter when she was in college to the tune of almost $200 in fees (almost all non-refundable). I'd been a loyal customer with BofA for decades and opened a BofA account for my daughter when she was a baby. Now I'm in the process of de-banking BofA. My bad for trusting them. What did I learn? de-bank any institution in financial trouble no matter what their advertisements say. Oh, and BofA's net promoter score? ZERO... (actually negative 1000).
I use a local bank started by a local supermarket owner. Many of the branches are in the stores. Aside from the fact that they do a great job of customer service, I always recommend them as having better fried chicken than any other bank. On the flip side, I've been arguing with them for years to add a salad bar to their standalone locations.
I am not sure a letter will do any good. I have been a loyal BOA customer for over 15 years and when it was time to get my first mortgage, I shopped around but I saved BOA last because I figure it would be the one I use since I have been banking with them for over 15 years. To my surprise, when I bought the rate I got from Chase bank, I was flat out told no, we cannot match or beat it. I said to BOA customer service, but I have been with BOA and I do not even bank with Chase. Needless to say, I got my mortgage with Chase and now I am banking with Chase also. I have moved my auto paycheck to Chase from BOA. It has been a slow migration to Chase, but man oh man, BOA customer service just not up to par!
