Leda Writes for Fintech Futures: A banker went a-banking

Every Thursday, Leda Glyptis, 11:FS Chief of Staff creates #LedaWrites. This week she returns to the issues with her high street bank.

I got an email. From my bank. “Dear Customer,” it said. “We read your blog.” No it didn’t.

It said, did you visit our Old Broad Street branch on such and such a day and such and such a time? Why yes I did. Would you complete a customer satisfaction survey?

Boy oh boy, would I?

Now, things get interesting.

This was merely a statistical exercise in calculating NPS. A play in numbers. A play for numbers. But I am big on eating my own dog food. So I answered the questions. And this is what I told them:

• Don’t ask me about your people, ask me about yourself.

All I have to say to this is, thank god for the free-form box where I could actually say what needed to be said. And what needed to be said is this: no matter how polite your staff, if they don’t know why they are doing what they are doing, they can never be truly helpful.

They are following a process blindly. And your people don’t know why they do what they do and why they don’t do what they don’t do and it’s your fault, not theirs. And no amount of courtesy will make up for that. And it’s a terrible thing to be put in a position where you cannot improve your own performance. Don’t do that to your people. Teach them.

• Don’t ask me about my task, ask me about your capabilities

Did you do what you came here for? Sure. Eventually. And it was hard because your folks didn’t have the right tools.

Because you spent none of your innovation budget or your venture investment budget on making your colleagues’ lives easier. On skilling them up. On tooling them up. On equipping them to meet my need and get the task done.

Why don’t you make your employees’ lives better, and through theirs, mine?

• Go ahead and ask me for my name

I don’t name the bank in my blogs. I never do. I occasionally refer to them as the Giant in Red (pick one, your options are limited) for a few reasons.

So I filled out the feedback form. And then the last question came: are you happy to disclose your name and for someone to call you to discuss your answers?

You betcha. So here we are. You asked. I answered. You challenged and I said bring it.

It was bad enough before you asked. But now if nobody calls me, we are beyond hope.

Your move, Giant in Red.

Read the whole story at Fintech Futures.