Would you make a comment about this poor customer service behavior?

In My Humble Opinion
1

If someone is doing a poor job but not a bad job, do you complain? Do you say anything?

I work for a nfp and as such I go to the bank at least once a week and sometimes much more than that to do our deposits. For a long time I’ve been going to the same bank, the one most convenient for me.

Well, this branch recently hired two new employees. And they were S-L-O-W. I’ve been new before, so I am patient with new people and explain things more carefully and take it easy.

But now three months have gone by. They are STILL just as slow. I can’t put my finger on any one thing they do wrong, but they are appallingly slow. They don’t talk to me, which I don’t care about except when they think they have found something wrong they don’t ask me about it (even though I’m standing right there). They just keep counting and counting. Or staring blankly at it.

They’re not surly, or mean, or constantly doing things wrong - just very slow. So I’ve started going to another branch of the same bank.

My question is, I guess, should I bother to tell anyone at this bank why I’ve switched branches? Or should I just keep my mouth shut?

2

What’s an “nfp”?

And yes, I’d write a letter to the branch manager. Be as specific as you can be as to when you visited the branch. If you noticed the names of the slowpoke tellers, include them. The bank management will - or ought to - care about why they’re losing customers.

3

It takes a lot for me to complain about customer service. In fact, I can’t remember ever doing it no matter how bad the service is. They’d have to try to openly rob me or something to get me to talk to a manager. Slow service can be annoying for a few minutes, but it’s only a few minutes and I forget all about it as soon as I’m out of there.

4

It’s annoying for a few minutes…but the point is, it’s every week. And now I have to change my schedule to go someplace else.

Elendil’s Heir, an nfp is a not-for-profit.

I don’t generally complain about bad customer service either. It depends on how bad it is. But if I go somewhere FREQUENTLY, that’s a whole different story.

5

Mika, I would definitely send a note to the branch manager. State it pretty much the same way you have in your OP. They would definitely want to know if their employees are causing a burden to their customers.

6

I’m not telling you what you should do. You asked what we would do. I was just answering the question like it was a poll. I personally dislike the hassle and confrontation of calling for a manager more than I care about slow service. That’s just me. I’m not judging anyone else.

7

Not to mention, when I go, I have a LOT of deposits, with tons of checks & cash, usually. I go out of MY way to make it as efficient as possible. Over time I’ve learned the way they like it…I total the checks and include receipt tape, I bundle the cash just the way they can keep it neat and still open it fast, etc. But what’s the point if at the other end they’re going to be turtles over it?

ETA: DtC, I understand, and thank you for your answer. That is what I wanted to hear, what others would do, but I was just responding with further information that it’s not just one isolated time. :slight_smile:

8

As someone who also has to go to the bank regularly for commercial reasons I feel your pain. The staff makes such a difference. I was so thrilled when a branch of our bank opened up a couple of blocks from the office but they are so darn slow that the wait time made it not worth going there. I now go to the branch a few miles away and get back to the office sooner.

Did I tell anyone? No. Simply because I feel like I am an impatient person but after reading a few comments, maybe I should.

9

I’m with Dio here. Service would have to be openly surly or rude to get me to complain. Mere slowness would just get me to not come back. I guess I’m one to suffer in silence, the small things anyway.

10

Since you said ‘two new’ tellers, I assume there are many other tellers. Can you not just wait for another teller?

I don’t agree that you should complain. It’s probably taking you longer to travel to the other place that it is to wait for the tellers to do their jobs.

I’d learn a meditation phrase and use it while I’m waiting. Being in a rush all the time is bad for one’s health - making the most of a pause during the day is not a bad thing.

11

There are either 3 or 4 at any given time. Usually just 3, one good one and the two lousy ones. Some of the old ones quit or moved or something, I’m assuming. Most of the time the one really good teller is occupied, which leaves me with one of the slow ones.

12

I try to be understanding of customer service personnel myself. So long as I don’t feel that the worker in question was being deliberately rude or corrupt, I’m not going to make an issue out of things.

But that’s for a single incident.

What the OP is describing is a chronic problem. A reasonable time frame has been allowed for the new workers to get up to speed, and they haven’t. I think it’s quite reasonable for someone who deals with this situation every week to send a note to the branch manager detailing her concerns, and reasons for taking her business to another branch simply because of the frustrations involved with dealing with the staff at this branch.

This isn’t a matter of a decision based on a single incident, the bar for a complaint is much lower for a chronic problem than the sort of egregious behavior that would warrant a complaint for a single incident. If you’ve started taking your weekly business to a different location because of this problem, it’s serious enough that I believe it warrants mention.

13

I’m sort of feeling guilty about something like this at the moment.

Long story short.

My employer subsidises a bus service to its premises. On this particular day a bus with a different number pulls up. Minutes later it leaves without opening its doors to us passengers. The next one turns up 15 minutes late. Net result - a 40 minute wait for a bus and a late arrival at work.

The latter had an excuse of traffic. Fine - but the first driver was quite clearly just game playing. He could see us, he knew we were his passengers, he just thought it funny to just leave us.

I put in a complaint and, being somewhat tangentally involved with the subsidies, the company are taking my complaint seriously. I suspect the driver is in for a hard time when they interview him for the second time.

He shouldn’t have been a jerk but now I’m sort of regretting it if he gets into serious trouble. But I’m pretty sick of the bus driver games I see being played at passenger’s expense.

14

I’m not one who hesitates to complain about bad service, but I don’t think I’d complain about this, at least based on the situation as presented. I don’t think there’s much the manager can do. The employees are presumably working as fast as they are comfortable without making errors. It’s not like you mentioned them goofing off or chit chatting, which would be a different situation. So if the manager encourages/pressures them to speed up, the result will probably be errors, which ultimately waste time and could be worse for you than the slowness. It is rare for someone in a clerical/customer service job to be fired for doing their job correctly and politely but slowly. Even if they did get fired, what position does that put the manager in? Hiring and training more new tellers.

Although you have in fact learned how to organize your deposit, you might try asking these tellers if there is anything you should be doing to help them process your transaction more quickly. There might be something, or at least it would communicate that speed is a priority to you.

15

I wouldn’t complain to the bank about a specific person, because of slowness. Complain that it takes too long to get service. It’s not bad customer service for a person to be slow. It’s anoying as hell, but they are gettinig the stuff done without being rude or incompetent. Some employers hire faster people at a rate more than the slow employee’s and they still get the same work per dollar done. Enter a complaint on the service speed in general, and use a different line.

I did see a person fired finally for slowness. She ticketed one box of items for sale in 4 hours. Ticketing was her last stop before the boot.

16

Well, if you usually have LOTS of deposits, with tons of checks and cash, you might not be part of the solution.

You may, instead, be part of the problem.

Just my $0.02 cents worth.

17

Once when I worked in customer service, I got in huge amounts of trouble because a customer called head office to complain that my attitude was not as perky as they would have liked. (I’m not kidding. My manager agreed it was totally bogus but he had to write me up anyway.) At that same chain, a colleague got a promotion because a customer called head office to joyously rave about how he went out of his way for them (in a way that all of us regularly went out of our way for customers, it’s just that most of them don’t call head office).

Customer calls matter a lot to some companies. If you think about it, it’s the only way they can really get feedback on their employees - co-workers, managers, subordinates, etc, can’t know what someone’s customer service skills are as well as the customers themselves.

And I know that when I was a customer service wonk I was THRILLED when my colleagues or I got well-deserved customer complaints. It was the only source of recognition for good work (especially in a corporate store), and it was good vindication for bad work - if I was stuck working with someone who couldn’t do their job, the manager was clueless and there was nothing I could do about it. I couldn’t believe some of the crap our customers took from some of my co-workers and they should not have put up with it.

So I do comment about customer service regularly, good or bad. (Note: I NEVER call for the termination of employees. That’s just wrong. I am generous with praise where called for, and I am generous with the benefit of the doubt when my experience was negative. Also I am always, always as sweet as pie; even if I’m angry, it’s almost certainly not the person I’m talking to who deserves my anger.)

Most recently was last week, I went into a big famous store and got really awful service from the first person who “helped” me and really great service from the second (and in the end they didn’t stock my size so I didn’t get what I went in for). When I got home I wrote an e-mail to their info@ address on the website and got a personal reply within a day from head office, and another reply within another day from the manager of the two people I commented about.

Sometimes you even get free stuff. But people who complain just to try to get free stuff are dicks. (That’s a whole nother thread, I think.)

In your case I’d talk to the manager, if only to say “I’ve switched branches and thought you might be interested in hearing why.” I expect the answer would be a “Yes, I’m interested.” If it’s just a matter of slow-ness, nobody is going to lose their job, and it can only help the branch.

On preview I totally agree with what Harmonious Discord said: complain about the length of time to get service, not about the slowness.

18

I realize this. Unfortunately I don’t really have a way to change it.

On one end, the stuff I am depositing is donations. So while we gently encourage it, I can’t really ask the elementary school who turned in $30 in coins to change it over to checks. Nor can I ask the person who raised $597 but it’s all in small checks, coins, and cash to change. I roll coin and do the best I can but I can’t change the fact that it’s a donation.

Then on the other hand, it has to be deposited a certain way, to go in our system correctly.

So yes, it’s complicated. I do what I can to make it simple, but the fact is, they are a bank and are accustomed to it, and we do a LOT of business through them. So they should be prepared to deal with it, too.

19

I see. Does the bank have a Commercial window? If not, it might be better to arrange a specific time for your deposit, so that you can get better service.

20

Well, or she could keep going to another branch where they are happy to help her at her convenience. I don’t see how it’s a “problem” if she is making deposits into an account at that bank. Accepting deposits is one of the services that a bank provides, in exchange for letting them hold your money. It’s not as if its a special courtesy.