CUSTOMER SERVICE IS EVERYONE'S RESPONSIBILITY

I worked in an area of Scotiabank called Automotive Finance. My job related to finance programs for car dealers to put cars on their lots for sale or lease and for financing their customers’ car purchases or leases.

So you could say, I was first a Scotiabanker then an automotive finance expert. I understood that without customers, Scotiabank would not be a very good place to work or to invest. I knew that we would lose customers if we did not provide them with great service. In the end, great service was all that separated us from the competition.

One day, I got a call from an elderly lady who was extremely frustrated. She had been shunted around to 5 different departments in the Bank and none were the right areas to handle her issue with GICs. She had received information regarding a special interest rate offer on GICs with a short time limit to take advantage. She wanted to invest in GICs. I asked her if she had gone to her own branch of the Bank and she told me she had and they knew nothing about the offer. Apparently, they told her to phone Head Office.

Now GICs were just about the furthest thing from my responsibilities in the Bank. In fact, I didn’t have a clue at that time what GICs were. And there was no Department in the Bank called “GIC Department”.

I kind of shivered when I told the lady that I would have someone call her back in 30minutes with an answer to her questions and they would solve her problem. I also told her I would call her back in 35 minutes to find out if her problem was resolved.

I then looked through the internal [paper] phone directory again and was not able to find the term “GIC”. Then I looked through hundreds of circulars (internal Bank notices) and finally found one with the heading “Special GIC Rate”. I tracked down the author through the circular department and phoned. Everyone was out of the office (12:30) except a clerk who took my call. I explained the lady’s problem and said “Now you have to keep my promise and call her. Then you need to call her branch and explain what they should do for her. And you only have about 15 minutes left before my promise runs out.”

When I phoned the lady back in 20 minutes, she was extremely happy that she had received 2 phone calls, one from the clerk in the Head Office Department explaining everything and one from her Branch Manager apologizing for her trouble and arranging her GIC transfer over to the higher rate.

In retrospect, was the Branch Manager responsible? Yes- he was her account manager and his staff should have contacted Head Office, not forced the client to call.

Was the clerk in the GIC department responsible? Yes because her job depended on the Bank successfully selling this product to customers. She was the only one holding down her department at the time.

Was her department responsible? Yes because they failed the Bank’s customers and branch staff by publicizing the special offer before they advised branches what to do.

Was I responsible? Yes because I represented the Bank, I took her call and I was this customer’s last line of help.

Was every department that shuffled her off to another department responsible? Yes they failed to serve the customer.

Everyone in your company has some responsibility for customer service. Owners should ensure all staff know what role they play and what roles others in the company play.

If a customer has a problem and you take the call, do the responsible thing and commit to providing your customer with a solution within a reasonable time frame. Then go after everyone in the company who can help solve that problem and get their commitment to do it. Tell them you are going to follow them up in a specific time and that you will be the contact point to provide status reports to the customer.

Great service comes only through great commitment.