Citibank: World class or old world

No this is not a post examining the banking ideologies. Its a good old-fashioned rant when an institution prized for its service standards fails to live up to them.

Now let me first clarify that personally i am not a full-fledged customer of Citibank (i only have my investment account with them) but both the company i work for and my sister are customers. In these last two weeks the staff at the bank have gotten on my back teeth with their outmoded and non-customer friendly approach to customer service. I can understand the need for protocol and even appreciate the red tape that banks have built so solidly into their foundation since it means that they are protecting my accounts and my money as well. What i fail to understand is why some simple administrative details and some special requests, under highly unusual circumstances, are either bungled up or dealt with with extreme rigidity. Enough of cloaked references let’s get down to actual instances:

Example One
My company recently had some account information changed. As those of you who deal with banks within the capacity of an organization know this involves signing a multitude of resolutions advising the banks that “yes we’ve thought about it and we are really, really sure and no it will never be your fault”. Thats all fine and fair since banks have enormous liabilities anyways and they do not need anymore. Now what i found unpalatable was the officer who called to tell me there was a problem with one of the signatures took her bad day out on me as she spoke to me. It was after i said i did not appreciate her tone of voice in the discussion that she managed a more civil and pleasant approach.

That was minor enough but the second instance is what put me over my already stretched threshold.

Example Two
My sister is based out of town for work for the next few months and prior to her departure she had set-up a Citibank account so that she could access her account internationally and not have to deal with carrying so  much money with her. Unfortunately she has since been pick-pocketed and asked me to help her cancel all her cards and deal with ensuring that replacement cards get to her especially the ATM card since she needs it much more than her credit cards.

The first customer service rep i spoke to was professional and helped expedite the process, or so it seemed. They sent 2 replacement credit cards to my home yesterday but no ATM card. I called them this morning and impressed upon them the urgency to the situation. She merely repeated their standard line of”7 days to replace an ATM card” and there seemed to be no record of the unusual circumstances my sister was in or request to expedite matters. I think its quite simple actually if you don’t allow your front-line staff flexibility to make certain judgments based on extenuating circumstances then don’t fault them should the customer demand to speak to someone with authority. You would think customer service departments would get a clue by now. In anycase i had sorted that one by being very clear about the purpose of my call and leaving Citibank with no doubt that there was no way i would not have the objective carried out in the manner i saw fit.

The second point of the call was to enquire why some account information we had changed a year ago was still reflecting the old information. The rep had no clue but needed to verify it with my sister before she could act on it when we had sorted it all out in the same manner a year ago. Caution i can deal with. Incompetence and fools i do not suffer lightly. If a bank cannot keep your account details up-to-date then we might be safer stuffing our money into our mattresses since interest rates in Singapore aren’t exactly terribly exciting.

Now i truly can’t wait for my trip to Hanoi. Maybe a change of environment will soothe the savage beast within.

~ by Preet-O on January 31, 2007.