For the past year or so, I've been slightly peeved every time I use an ATM. Why? Because of how my two checking accounts are listed. They are my personal and business checking accounts, but at ATMs, they are simply called "1" and "2." Of course those two numbers have no meaning to me; they might very well be referring to Thing 1 and Thing 2 from the Dr. Seuss children's book "The Cat in the Hat." By luck I've always managed to remember which account is which, but I resent that I must retain that information.
Another problem with my Chase experience is that although I successfully enacted a personal name change 2 1/2 years ago, once Chase took over BankOne, the old name reappeared on both the website and on printed statements. I finally decided to resolve the problem. I called Chase.com. The Customer Service Rep was friendly, said that my name would be updated on the site within the hour. I logged in after an hour, and sure enough, it was fixed.
Exhilarated by this easy victory, I decided to attempt to rectify the ATM issue. I couldn't find the right area to address this so with reluctance I went through their Contact Us link. I had to choose from a list of situations none of which really applied to me (often a bad sign). I explained the situation and hit send. I expected to get the usual dreaded response--"We can't resolve this through the website--please call us during regular hours and be on hold and get transferred a bunch of times and repeat your problem to twelve different people until you finally lose your sanity."
To my surprise, I didn't receive that dreaded email. In fact, when I visited an ATM a mere 48 hours later, my accounts had been renamed to my exact specifications. Checking back at Chase.com, I discovered that they had made the change within 8 hours of my request. Extraordinary.
And yet, perhaps it's sadly telling that I was so easily impressed. Perhaps my expectations are set low because of years of experience indicating if I want to get things fixed or processed, I have to go through the right channels--the "right" ones being those that are best for the company.
What more companies need to realize is that from the Customers' perspective, the "right" channel is the one that the customer feels like using at that moment. A customer should be able to quickly resolve any problem through the channel of their choice. They should not be made to feel that they are being delayed or stymied because they have not deduced the right venue for their request.
What are your channel stories? And do you think that overall, companies are getting better at addressing customer communication through multiple channels, or worse?