I serve on the board of a local nonprofit organization, and back in June we had to make some changes to our bank account. The board president and I stopped by a local branch, and our experience could have been a case study of how not to treat customers.
One worker admitted that the bank had changed hands so many times that she wasn't sure of the correct procedure anymore. A boss cheerfully told one of her employees, in our earshot, that she could use us for practice, as she had never performed that specific transaction before. At one point I had to tell an employee how to do a computer search (the software wasn't DOS-based, but it was pretty close).
So far, so bad, but the worst was yet to come: we found out that the bank had never updated its list of authorized check-signers for our account. There were one guy listed who had not been a board member for years. Despite this, our checks were still being cashed.
We left the bank feeling queasy, and several more problems that cropped up over the next few months were the final nails in the coffin.
So the same woman and I returned to the bank to close our account. We had our game plan all ready, but much to our surprise they closed our account with no questions asked and simply handed over a cashier's check. No expressions of regret, no inquiries about why we were closing the account or what they could do to keep us as customers.
Something's wrong when it's much easier and more pleasant to close an account than to open one.
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