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Showing posts from May, 2011

CUSTOMER SERVICE: BE HAPPY TO HELP

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This is a follow up to my earlier post (http://bit.ly/ld68wW) about my experience with the ING Bank. The last time there was a person who was mistakenly ‘authorized’ for my mother’s account. So, we had to send in a form to have that person removed. Yesterday I did go to the bank and I was in for a big surprise....... I was no longer authorized myself . Mistakenly they had removed me as well! The person at this local branche had no explanation for this. The only suggestion was to restart up the whole authorization process from the beginning. Needless to say that I also couldn’t perform the transaction that I was supposed to do. This is really an incredible experience. They can add and remove people who are authorized to your account, without your consent! I do think that trust is a very important cornerstone of the financial system. I told them that my trust was damaged and they totally understood. But they said that they could do nothing about it. The message of empowering your em

ACCESS TO THE MARKET IS VITAL FOR YOUR GROWTH

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A friend told me about a meeting with people from a multinational (Cargill). Out of the 40 HR people present, only 2 were on LinkedIn and Twitter was blocked for internal usage. This ‘policy’ proves a couple of things: -        their leaders don’t trust their employees -        they see social media as a waste of time -        they shut of their capacity to learn from the outside world -        the NIH (not invented here) syndrome is still very active Of course they can block this access internally, but more and more employees are using their own tools (gmail, chatting, social networks) anyway to do their work. This is because the IT department cannot meet their needs with its legacy environment. And the job must be done, so they use any tool that they deem to be appropriate for that. Research has also proven that people who have a break to e.g. check-in with their friends are more productive. When they go home every day. They started using those media immediately. It is interes

IS YOUR CUSTOMER THE STARTING POINT AND THE END OF YOUR PROCESSES?

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This week I had a revealing experience with the ING Bank. At the moment I am (formally) authorized to do financial transactions for my mother. I have been doing this for many years now. My mother has no computer, so the transactions have to be done via paper or via the phone. Many banks seem to forget though that elderly people are a significant segment of their customers. I will not bother you with all the ‘bloody’ details, but here are some experiences: -        I did sell some shares on a Wednesday and they confirmed me that the money would be in her account the next Monday. -        When I called on Monday, the money wasn’t there. She said that this was impossible and that her colleague did something wrong. -        Previously I could transfer money to for a rush order, by phone. -        Now I had to visit a local branch to make that happen. -        The computer system in the branch indicated that I wasn’t authorized to do this. There was another person ‘authorized’ whic