Last week my son got his provisional drivers licence in the state of New South Wales. As a good citizen, I thought I would disclose to my insurer that a young driver with a provisional licence was now driving one or more of our cars.
I dreaded doing this as I was time poor that morning. Also, I wasn’t sure if my son would be successful, so I didn’t exactly plan ahead. With a feeling of dread, I dialled my insurer’s number. Now my insurer advertises the fact that you will always talk with a human, which was one of the reasons I picked them. No problems then, I dialled the number and sure enough a human being answered the call. Then she asked how she could re-direct the call. This is when you’re placed in a queue.
After listening to various in-house advertisements, compliance statements and the obligatory reminder to disclose, I got through. All-in-all it took five minutes to get through to a human being. I consider that good.
Compare that with my experience with my bank. Who, by the way, have a considerable amount of my money invested with them at such a low rate as to make the return insignificant. It took me fifteen minutes before I spoke to a human being. In that time I was forced to listen to inane product advertisements and repeatedly had to listen to how my call was important to them and to please hold the line.
When a human did answer the phone, I informed her that I wanted the Term Deposit that was with them matured and deposited into another account that was with them. Both accounts had the same name. As I was getting ready to end the call, the lovely person on the other end of the line informed me that I can only do that at a branch. When I asked why, she told me it was for security reasons. I informed her that if I was a thief I would hardly shift funds from one account to another in the same name. Also, how is the security situation alleviated if I transact this simple task in a branch? Silence.
I may as well be talking to a machine. I bid her fare-the-well and just hung up.
Now, the call centre person is not at fault. Banks have become so tied up in process, they’re at risk of telling you absolutely nothing. This is evidenced by the poor call centre operator presumably disappearing when faced with a sensible question. This has become so prevalent that the difference between talking to a recorded message when you first call and the human being after a period of listening to financial gibberish has diminished so much that it’s hard to tell when the machine stops and the human takes over.
Having experienced this for so long, Nick and I were adamant that we would always answer our phones – unless of course we were busy, then you’d go to a machine with a recorded message telling you to leave a recorded message…but I digress.
The problem that many organisations face in the modern world is compliance with the myriad new rules and regulations imposed upon them by their regulators or lawmakers. At the core of all of these laws, rules and regulations is the presumption that all of their staff are not to be trusted and all of their customers are somehow criminally inclined. Of course, no one thinks that’s the case but that’s the way it has been interpreted and implemented.
Before you mount an argument, think about the last time you opened a bank account, renewed a drivers licence or a passport. You had to be identified. Why? To ensure that you’re not a money launderer, terrorist, a tax evader or some other nefarious master criminal. You are presumed to be unsavoury until you have satisfied the bank or government otherwise.
Sadly, this practice has pervaded our society. So much so that many of us spend our lives trying to evade a very small percentage of bad people. Whilst doing this we rob ourselves of the opportunity to interact with the overwhelming majority of people that are fundamentally good and well intentioned.
How did this happen? How did our corporate lives so negatively influence our personal ones.
In our business:
- You will always talk with a human being (unless we’re on the phone).
- We will trust you unless you give us reasons not to.
- We will get you the best quotes from 20+ lenders not the best quote from one.
- We will disclose what we have to gain from working with you (even though we won’t charge you).
- We will simplify the process to easily manageable steps – we will not talk in riddles.
- We will treat you with respect and give you the courtesy all human beings deserve from another human being.
- Where we’re allowed, we will do the running around and the work for you.
Everyone deserves to be treated this way. So why do many of us still persist in being treated differently?