It's nothing personal...

First some backstory... I've been with the same bank since "forever" even though the bank has gone through three or four mergers with accompanying name changes. I'd dealt with the same folks for years including one teller in particular who always treated my Mom with kindness. Eventually they got to exchanging birthday cards to their home addresses and when my Mom passed away she came to the viewing to pay her respects and express her sympathy. It was truly the personal touch, but you didn't feel like they were being friendly to promote business. Folks there were friendly just because they were naturally friendly and always there for us to answer questions or whatever.

Well, the latest bank takeover (by one of the mega-banks) in the last year or two has now led to layoffs of those people I liked and now there are strangers in their positions. The new people may be just as nice, but there was really no good reason for laying off the others except the usual—finding folks who'll do the jobs for less.

So now I noticed in the last few months that my account interest has become just about negligible. I could probably walk up and down the street the bank is on and find as much in change lying on the sidewalk as the interest I was earning daily. So I walked into the bank this past week in hopes of sitting down with someone and figuring out what I could do to rectify the situation. Some guy I'd never seen before quickly examined my account and gave me some info on available CDs, all of which took about two minutes. Apparently his main task was to give me the 800 number of someone else to call.

As I expected I ended up playing telephone tag with this person for most of the week. Her voicemail message talked about how banking with [name of mega-bank] gets you "a team of dedicated professionals working for you." When I finally got to talk to her, she told me how I was a "premiere client" and as such entitled to "personal service." She then explained that this meant I'd never have to walk into my bank.

Huh!?

I responded to her that in my mind (and hey, maybe I'm just strange, I don't know) the ability to walk into the bank and deal with people whom I know and who know me, who will greet me even if they just see me in a setting outside of the bank, is precisely what I expect of true personal service. What could be more personal than actually dealing with folks you come to know and trust on site, who even live in your same general area?

Apparently their new idea of "personal service" is providing paltry interest rates on longstanding accounts, making sure they never have to actually see me in person, and forcing me to deal over the phone with a complete stranger whom I've never met and who doesn't know anything about me.

The world continues changing and not for the better. Sigh.