I'm rather excited about the upcoming months with The Garland Group and Banktastic. I'm being sent to several different events, some of which include places I've never seen. Read Full Post

My home sits about a quarter of a mile from the Minnesota Vikings Summer Training Camp. Every year at this time, a caravan of big media trucks equipped with satellite video equipment rolls into town. Camera crews rove around for a couple days picking up footage of the fanfare and getting interviews. In the end, only a few short moments of video ever make it onto the evening news. And in those few short moments, I am given a limited perspective of what has been going on all week just a couple blocks over.

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That would be me, Peggy, the Garland Group’s Administrative Assistant. I joined the company at the end of May and have been learning a bit since then about the banking industry. It’s changed quite a bit since i was a teller back in the seventies! Several of the guys I now work with weren’t even born when I was posting deposits on a computer that was almost the size of my desk here at the office, and I was opening savings accounts that paid 16% interest!! Lots of changes in the banking industry through the years. I recently found out that I can’t go into my bank and ask for an auto loan. Those, at least at my bank (which is one of the largest), are done completely online. I imagine it’s the same when applying for a mortgage loan.

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As a baby boomer, the traditional branch location continues to have some value for use of a community room, safe deposit boxes and just looking your banker in the eye; but the X & Y generations see little to no value in using the traditional branch. Yeah, they may have to go once in a while to get a cashiers check, or sign loan papers, but it’s an exception instead of the rule.

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Throughout my career, I have found that the single most frequent cause of a project or group’s failure occurs when the individual’s involved fail to communicate. While the seemingly obvious problem is easily visible, the transitions required to correct the situation are less pronounced and can be difficult to implement when one is not focusing on the process. The path toward correction of the communication problem has a dysfunctional, collaborative, and anticipatory phase. Discerning which phase a group is in can be simple once one understands the specific symptoms or attributes of the phases.

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I am not an expert in the field of banking by any stretch, but I am a consumer and customer of one of the biggest banks in America…who shall remain nameless :) and SOMETHINGS awry with their communication between customers and customer service. Let me tell you about my recent experience…

We recently went on a three-week trip to Norway and Finland. About 2 weeks prior to us leaving, I decided to be pro-active and call all my credit card companies and debit card company to let them know that we would be in northern European for a period of time and would be using our cards over there. Just letting them know so my card would be valid and transactions would go through when needed. You know, I was trying to do all the stuff the travel people tell you to do ahead of time, and had security in mind for my cards.

Called Discover….no problem… in a quick, friendly visit with a customer service rep, all was well and taken care of.

Called Mastercard…same thing…quick and easy, no problem; all set up and ready to go within 5 minutes.

Called my Visa debit card through B of A. My call got rerouted several times, ended up on hold for over 30 minutes TWICE, then routed to wrong department and my call was summarily dropped. Tried to go online and make a note that we would be out of the country and guess what? There were no options to even choose on the list they provided of possible automated messages. So, I left work, got in my car and drove a couple of miles down the road to my local branch. Was greeted at the door by a young guy who said he could help me. Went into a little room with him, explained my frustration with their phone system, and told him what I needed to do. He then got on the phone and called someone at B of A, got rerouted to the WRONG PERSON himself, and after he talked to 3 different people, and I sat and waited for almost 45 minutes. He SAID that it was taken care of. At that point, I didn’t know whether to believe him or not…so what did I do??? I decided to not take a chance of being able to use my debit card over there, and withdrew a large sum of money from my account to take with me instead. On the way back to the office, I then called the number on the back of my card, explained to the lady what should have just taken place and I was just checking to make sure there was a notation about my account being used in Europe between this date and that date. Well, that must have been too soon for his changes to take place within their system, because SHE DIDN’T SEE IT. Total frustration on my part, with this bank and debit card.

At this point, I asked myself…WHY was it so easy for Discover to do it quickly on the phone in a 5-minute call; and for MASTERCARD to do it in a 5 minute call, and B of A couldn’t do it in several hours and direct calls from my own bank??? WHY DID IT HAVE TO BE SO HARD?

Here’s the end of my story… we got to Europe, and all my cards worked for me over there…even my B of A debit card, but I was nervous about it the whole trip. And when I got back…I decided….

I am changing banks.

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I’ve officially seen the full spectrum of Remote Deposit Capture now. We’ve been to banks that will sell scanners and merchant capture solutions to mom and pop shops and give their dog a login account through cash management (Don’t worry he’s a guard dog, so he understands security). I’ve also talked to CEO’s who just won’t allow their customers to do their encoding for them, so they won’t even consider a merchant capture product. Maybe he should get a more reliable customer base.

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With banking technology advancing almost by the minute, you’ve probably been fighting to keep up with all these changes. You can set up things like mobile banking, create a company blog, provide remote check deposit services all you want. However, no matter how much ground-breaking technology you provide your customers, the main thing that will keep them loyal to you is your FI’s dedication to customer service.

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