Tuesday, February 14, 2006

Barclays Bank's customer service Rx

Peter Curtis writes on The Business Editors blog of Barclays Bank’s plans to go cheesy with their customer service.

As the BBC reports, its ATMs are to be renamed “holes in the wall” and a sign in the window is to welcome customers with the message “Through this door walk the nicest people in the world”. Give me strength.

Perhaps I’m just a miserable curmudgeon, but I’m afraid there’s something about this faux-chumminess that makes me want to heave… By all means talk to me in plain English – ditching the jargon that often surrounds financial products can only be a good thing. But don’t pretend to be my friend – it simply isn’t credible.

The problem, of course, is that money - not even the amount in Barclays’ coffers - cannot buy credibility. No matter how much a business wants to appear to ‘keep it real,’ the money-churning, almighty effort it constitutes to them still shines through. You can almost hear the bank managers groaning in anticipation - along with customers.

What would it take to really shape up their customer service? Curtis has a practical suggestion:

If Barclays can deliver genuine improvements in service, that will be something worth shouting about. As someone who’s fed up of negotiating labyrinthine bank call centres, a renewed focus on a more branch-based service would certainly be welcome.

More generally, I’d suggest this prescription (from Adrants via the Big Blog Company):

Give a shit. Basically, that’s what this boils down to. Consumers are not a vast collection of numbers on a spreadsheet or a nice collection of 5 categories with silly marketing names like “early, suburban adopter.” They are people with real concerns that will, ultimately, lead to a better product. Listen and give a shit. That’s good marketing medicine.