The Reality Of The Consumer -- You Can Bank On It!

I ended up having to start the day doing something that I absolutely hate doing.

Talking with my bank.

Why did I have to talk with them?

Because they did something absolutely stupid and I thought I had it resolved, but it wasn’t.

The bank where our business account is housed is Wachovia.

A friend of mine who also has a small business asked me where we had our company account and when I said Wachovia, he replied… “Oh, that is where my business accounts were at…the bank Walk-all-over-ya!”

My friend runs a successful small business.

About a year ago, Wachovia decided to stop offering small businesses business credit card services and transferred all the accounts to Bank of America.

The bank I had to call this morning was Bank of America.

I wish someone would come up with a new way of saying “Bank of America” that also translates into something more descriptive like “Walk-all-over-ya.”

What did Bank of America do?

They had a guy we let go a year ago that was an hourly clerical assistant listed on our corporate Visa account as the owner of the company.

I found out about this when I had questions concerning some charges on the account and was told that there was nothing I could do. Only the person that they had listed as the owner of the company could ask questions like I was asking.

When I told them I was the sole owner and the guy listed was laid-off more than a year ago, I was then told that I had to fill out forms and send them in with a witness also confirming me as the owner of the company.

I am not making this up.

After filling out the forms and getting the letters and witness confirmation all sent in two weeks ago, I received yet another set of forms in the mail yesterday.

I called the Bank of America 1-800 Customer Service and ended up getting a guy on the other end of the phone that proceeded to essentially lecture me and “help me understand” how business issues are handled and corrected.

When I further explained how stupid…and costly a mistake had taken place…he asked me not to be “negative” and “confrontational.”

Our call did not last much longer.

When I tried to call the local Bank of America offices yesterday afternoon, I got routed back to the same 24/7 service number I had called earlier.

I later found out that the banks close down at 4:00pm. I guess the “9-to-5” jobs are history in the banking industry.

This morning, I did get through to a person in the local Athens office who listened and went on to say that she would get back with me later in the morning after she found out more details about the account.

I never heard back from the woman I spoke to this morning and it is now almost 8pm.

Why am I telling this story about the bank?

Tonight on the CBS Evening News, one of the featured stories was all about Bank of America.

What was the focus of the story?

A bank customer who tried repeatedly to get Bank of America to respond to questions and issues concerning her credit card and checking accounts, finally got so exasperated that she told her story in a video that she posted on YouTube.

Within days, more than 256,000 people watched the video and then posted similar Bank of America stories.

Here is the link to the story… http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jGC1mCS4OVo

Her commentary also got pushed through Facebook and Twitter postings.

In fact, the stories raised so many responses that Bank of America…along with some of the other large banks, finally responded back by changing some of the stupid things that they had been doing to customers.

The older I get, I realize that there are not too many things I can change, but then along comes stories like this that says…”Yes You Can!”

And while I personally feel refueled in the ability to correct stupid stuff, the learnings demonstrate further the importance, value and power of the consumer voice.

As I tell clients… what you define and market may appear to be reality, but it isn’t … and what consumers perceive and believe, how ever different from what you define, is reality.

Hello… And welcome to 2010!