The irony is businesses are not realizing the importance of customer service. Even if they make it a point to empty the pockets of the customer they should atleast provide some decent level of support.
Like so many other businesses, some are embracing technology and bending over backwards to provide white-glove customer service, while others are trying to trying to suck every dime out of their current customers while providing the minimum level of customer service.
On one hand, I have accounts at Chase Bank, which provides a system that allws me to deposit checks from my iPhone, a personal banker who knows me by name, and a generous system that pays me a small amount every month to use my electronic cards at merchants. On the other side, we have banks that eschew customer service, and charge $2 per month per account for paper statements.
Like other businesses, customer-facing financial institutions seem to have split into those that embrace technology and those that refuse to change.
I am very much in favor of consumer's taking back the reins from banks, utilities, and other big corporations which have been able to, frankly, push us around for so long.
In todays intant world no company can afford the bad press that can come from social media outrage. BOA and Ulsterbank in ireland this year have both in the last 12 months had a great deal of negative media to deal with based on poor decisions made. Can banks who are already on thin ice with consumers afford to have this and in today's world of competitive banking why are more customers not choosing to take action and switch banks? Are consumers all talk and no action or has BOA & ulster bank had lower profits this year? does anyone know?
Part of BoA's problem, and it's a real one, is that customers who maintain modest balances may indeed be costly. There has to be a more imaginative way of fixing that problem than, in effect, taxing them for not having as much money in their accounts as others.
The fact that a media relations "expert" called this quicksand tells the whole story to me. There's a stratified crowd at the Enterprise level that considers the consumer a cost center.
Yes, yes, they're the ones spending the money. OK, they get that. But this... this... expectation of being treated with value and respect, it's just so darn costly. Don't those filthy peons understand that BofA is actually doing them a favor by "helping" them to interest below the rate of inflation, and that it costs money to do that, so they *have* to charge us for it?
Yes, enterprises have responsibilities to the shareholders. But it seems that someone needs to remind these geniuses that the shareholders are *not* the business.
This is where midmarket companies enjoy an advantage. Because they're smaller, they might be less likely to convince themselves they're so essential that their customers can't afford to shop for alternatives.
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Recently, the Obama administration has been of two minds where privacy rights are concerned. On one hand, you have an administration that vowed to veto CISPA and mandated open data for government websites. On the other hand, you have an increasingly out-of-control Department of Justice on a fishing expedition at AP and demanding legislation to let the FBI wiretap private, encrypted communications and levy fines if a company fails to comply.
The apartment and house sharing service, Airbnb, now requires members to verify their identities by demonstrating a presence on the web, and by either scanning a government ID or entering detailed personal details. Other enterprises should take a close look at Airbnb's verification policies.
Facebook advertising is a lightning rod. It seems neither brands nor consumers are 100 percent happy about the social media site's policies, placement, or procedures. But the real controversy about Facebook ads and promotions is over whether they work.
By now, you've most likely heard about the 3D-printed gun that Texas-based Defense Distributed demonstrated last week. But we haven't heard the last about the censorship war that began soon afterward.
New York's Metropolitan Transit Authority is conducting a pilot test of digital kiosks to guide subway users to where they want to go more efficiently and at lower cost.
The whole Amazon.reader debate is a double-stupid. It's stupid to think that there's any e-book buyer who doesn't know Amazon's URL, and it was stupider to let ICANN launch the whole free-form TLD initiative to start with.
While NFC's original goal was to enhance mobile commerce applications, it is finding its way into a number of other uses, which is creating both opportunity as well as challenges for IT departments.
Enterprises would like to move to cloud computing but are hesitant because they are concerned about providers’ ability to secure company data. Here are some tips that help to ensure that if breaches occur, the business is not left holding the bag.
Edmunds separates customers into segments based on the info it collects on its site and from partners, and uses that to push out custom content, said Brian Baron, director of business analytics for Edmunds.com, at Predictive Analytics Innovation Summit.
The automotive website uses propensity modeling to target ads and customer registration forms, said Brian Baron, director of business analytics for Edmunds.com, at Predictive Analytics Innovation Summit.
Subsidized handsets, rather than locked handsets, should be the focus of regulators. We're not getting good deals, not fostering innovation, and weakening our power as buyers.
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