Dollar Bank's Everyday Customer Champion
Given the U.S. credit crunch and news about financial failures everywhere you turn, you probably feel some days like you're living in a pressure cooker. And with news of the absurd like the heads of the auto industry flying private jets to their bailout request meeting, or yesterday when Merrill Lynch CEO John Thain asked for a $10 million bonus (he deserves it--he kept the company's losses to only $11 billion), you may be losing faith that companies have any ounce of integrity, or sanity, left.
With money being spent with disregard for shareholders or customers, you may also think that investing in customer service may have to take a back seat. Well I want to share a story that is a glowing example of a company whose employees still focus on customer service, and do so at no cost to the company.
In October, my parents ended their relationship with their bank and started banking with Dollar Bank, a regional operation in Pittsburgh and Cleveland metropolitan areas that has been in business since 1855. From my parents' accounts, the branch operations administrator Noreen Dirling takes great care of her customers.
For example, my mother recently was hospitalized with pneumonia and must have mentioned it to Noreen during a recent visit to the bank. Noreen actually called my mother later that week at home to check on her. Another time, my mother went to the bank, but Noreen was busy with a customer. Noreen called my parents and apologized to my father. She told him she was busy with a customer and didn't have a chance to say hi to my mother. She also called my mother twice to see if she needed help with her online banking (my mother had previously received instruction for online banking at the branch).
Noreen is the pinnacle of a customer service leader. Therefore I nominate her as a 1to1 Everyday Customer Champion--someone who inspires customers to stay at their local business and routinely helps to solve their challenges.
Who's your Everyday Customer Champion? Click here to nominate yours.
After I posted this blog, I had a chance to speak to Patrick Werner, assistant vice president of branch banking at Noreen’s bank. He told me that every decision employees make there is in the best interest of the bank’s customers.
Every person who is hired at the bank goes through the company’s customer training program which lasts anywhere from three to six months. They teach to five service learning behaviors: how to greet each customer, being prepared for customers, product knowledge, knowing how to best serve customers, and ensuring follow up with a thank you or phone call.
“The thing we try to do is distinguish ourselves with the best customer service possible,” he told me. “We’re a mutual bank. The bottom line is our customers. They are at the heart of every decision we make.”