A couple of days ago I was telephoned by Barclays Bank call-centre. The caller was enquiring if the business was “happy with the service I was receiving from the bank”.

Happy with my bank?
Now moving bank is a tedious and time consuming operation and something only done if one is very upset with the level of service or to make substantial savings. I will say that I’m not unhappy with my bank, HSBC, and I told her this. Nevertheless, after discussing the business history and some of our future plans she persuaded me that a visit to the branch of Barclays could highlight some useful benefits. A convenient appointment with the branch Business Manager was made.

When I sat down with the “Business Manager” to discuss how Barclays could help my business it became apparent that he thought I was to “open a new account”. He didn’t “sell” Barclays as an alternative banking possibility and was confused as I sat there expecting to hear some “good news” that would encourage me to move my account.

Intrigued by the lack of awareness of my visit I questioned him and he confirmed that he had not spoken to the person who generated the appointment. As a result he knew nothing about me nor my business other than my name and the time of my appointment.

We agreed that by arranging the appointment for me the operator had simply fulfilled her objective of getting appointments with him. So, despite being told to the contrary, it was now obvious that the Bank’s staff were no more interested in me or my business…simply fulfilling their quota and meeting targets.

A costly lost opportunity?
The problem was that in fulfilling their individual targets the bank’s team had completely missed the larger target, which was to persuade me to to move my money to their bank.
As a possible customer my resulting view of Barclays is that it’s inefficient and doesn’t even to communicate between cross functional teams. Good for my business?…probably not!

It was a wasted opportunity for the bank, wasted time and money in contacting me and via this blog some avoidable adverse publicity.
Was it a waste of time to me… absolutely not…I had the topic for another blog post!