OP-ED: Customer Service Does Sell; Ask Ally Bank, Discover Card
By Rene A. Henry
Seattle, WA (HNN) – Customer service has virtually disappeared and is becoming an oxymoron at too many American companies. However, there are two believers who are not only winning new customers but raising the concerns of their competitors.
Ally Bank and Discover card believe consumers today want service and both are doing a great job spoofing all of the negative stereotypes of other banks and financial institutions with clever and humorous television campaigns. Unfortunately, so many of the problems the television commercials portray with comic relief still need to be resolved by their competitors.
Ally and Discover are wise to separate their companies from the rest of the industry. During our lifetime, companies in banking and finance may never win back the trust of the public. The public is still angry over the greed of so many senior executives who nearly destroyed U.S. financial markets and were bailed out with taxpayer funds. Many then used taxpayer funds to correct their mistakes and give senior executives exorbitant bonuses. These same executives have exacerbated the problem by adding fees to every possible transaction, increasing interest rates, lowering rates on deposits and failing in their responsibility to renegotiate and refinance so many subprime residential mortgages.
The Discover series of ads features a semi-literate, confused man, called who calls himself “Peggy,” based in the middle of nowhere in a disheveled and cluttered room surrounded by outdated telephones, all ringing, many on a hold button. He answers a phone from a caller who thanks him after waiting some 15 minutes to question a charge on the credit card. The only response Peggy has in his broken English is a programmed “yes” and after several questions he hangs up. In another call, Peggy looks at all the phones ringing and just smiles. Discover promises to answer any call 24/7 in one minute.
“We know consumers have long been frustrated with customer service calls, not just in the financial services industry, but as a whole,” says Jennifer Murillo, Discover’s director of advertising. “Service resonated with our focus group participants. Most were frustrated with bad service in the past. From day one our customer service support has been designed to put our card members first, anticipating and caring for their needs by providing top-notch customer service any time, day or night.”
The Discover campaign was developed in collaboration with its advertising agency, The Martin Agency. Laura Gingiss, senior manager of public relations, reports good feedback from consumers. “They relate to the experience and appreciate we are addressing the issue of customer service head-on,” she adds. To juxtapose Peggy’s wrong way to do it, Discover used You Tube and Facebook to launch videos that feature real customer service representatives sharing stories and their experiences to help cardmembers solve problems. The series of ads called “Meet (name), a Discover Customer Service Rep,” can be viewed at YouTube.com/Discover.
In its television commercials, Ally Bank pokes fun at almost every negative stereotype of banks today. The commercials are in a child’s play room with a business-like banker dressed in suit and tie. In one commercial a young girl is shown running around the room collecting eggs and hurrying to put them in a basket in front of the banker. As she runs to get more eggs, the banker takes half of the eggs and puts them in his pockets. When the girl returns to deposit more eggs in the basket, she is almost in tears when she sees so many of her eggs gone. The banker looks at her and says, “Egg management fee.”
In another commercial the banker holds a doll-sized image of himself and asks the girl if she would prefer broccoli or ice cream. When she excitingly replies “ice cream,” the doll answers, “We cannot process your request at this time. Call back tomorrow between 8 a.m. and 4 p.m.”
Gingiss and Discover’s public relations department also get an A+ for customer service. With no deadline on this article, I first e-mailed her department on a Friday afternoon before the long Labor Day weekend holiday. During that weekend I not only had an e-mail response from Lauren Olson of Burson-Marsteller, the company’s public relations counsel, but one as well from Laura Gingiss. All public relations practitioners could take a lesson from both of these women.
Hopefully, others in the banking and financial industry will take the Ally and Discover commercial seriously enough to start making changes to benefit customers. It would be smart to do so voluntarily before the new consumer finance protection agency does it for them.
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Rene A. Henry lives in Seattle and is the author of seven books and writes on a variety of subjects including customer service. A native of Charleston, WV, he is a contributor to Huntington News Network. Many of his widely published articles are posted on his website at www.renehenry.com. His latest book, “Communicating In A Crisis,” has a chapter just on customer service.