Even the best can bungle customer service

Credit unions strive to do a terrific job of taking care of members, but even the best on occasion can stumble when it comes to providing quality member service because they're not doing as good a job as they think. Less-than-perfect service is more noticeable today than ever before. Consumers are more demanding. They also have so many more choices than before. That's one reason why many credit unions strive to be right up there with the big boys known for their well-trained employees who know their stuff and are empowered to do the right thing on the spot. In other words, provide knock-your-socks-off member service. Yet, credit union staff, like employees working for such household names as United Airlines, Marriott Hotels, and Hilton, to name but a few, occasionally do fall short of perfection. For example, how about a credit union that punishes members (like tossing them out) for not using the credit union enough before ever bothering to ask what the reason for the inactive account may be? Or how about the credit union staffer who doesn't respond to a concerned member calling to determine why a monthly statement hasn't arrived by blaming it on the post office. Worse, no effort was made to rectify the problem. The message, however unintended, was clear: "It's not my problem." Then there's the credit union that decides to institute a fee policy without any warning to members. One day the new fee shows up on the member's statement. When the member calls to inquire, the person at the credit union admits he doesn't really know what's going on. Perhaps he missed the last employee training session? Perhaps there was no employee training session? Then there's the problem of money being deposited in the wrong member account. No explanation or apology is offered when the anxious member points out the error. "These things just happen," seems to be the attitude conveyed. Often times, credit union management is not even aware of some of the snafus taking place in their own credit union. Like the CU teller who responded to a member's question: "What's the difference between a credit union and a bank?" by saying that basically there is no difference. If it is any consolation to credit unions that don't always measure up, neither do the blue chip companies on every occasion. They do stumble even though their commitment to be the best is a major one, and even though they have considerable more resources than virtually every credit union. Consider some recent real life experiences. I'm a big fan of United Airlines. I fly them a lot. United was my first choice for a roundtrip to Hawaii. That is, until they insisted on a return flight route that no one with an ounce of common sense would book. Get out a map and follow along. Fly from Honolulu to San Francisco. Connect to a flight to Chicago. So far so good. My final destination of Madison, Wisconsin is a 28 minute flight (about 150 miles) from Chicago's main airport. Yet, the United reservation agent attempted to book me on a flight from Chicago to Denver to catch a direct flight from Denver to Madison. Of course there is a flight from Chicago to Madison, lots of them. However, at this time of the morning, the layover would be almost five hours. "That's the reason you have to fly to Denver" (a two-hour flight back West) the agent explained. "A layover that long in Chicago is an illegal connection," he said. "That's our rule, sorry." "But it is not my fault you don't have a Madison flight sooner than that and I am willing to endure the layover," I said. "Sorry," he said. And that was that. No matter what I said or whom I talked to, apparently, a rule is a rule at the "friendly skies" airline. The purpose of relating this story is not to pick on United, but to illustrate that even an airline known for superior customer service, can on occasion let an inflexible policy cause it serious customer relations harm. How much more sense it would have made if the reservation agent had been trained and empowered to use his common sense and admit that a four-hour round trip via Denver to get 150 miles down the road makes no sense for you the customer or us the airline, so I'll make an exception. The point is that there are situations like this that credit union front line troops face every day. Don't believe it? Just ask them. And ask them how they resolved them while you are at it. To provide top-of-the-line service, outdated credit union policies and procedures need to be sought out, re-evaluated, and if they no longer make member sense, changed or even discarded. It is so easy for poor service to go unnoticed, especially by those with the power to do something about it. No one at United will know about my bad experience because I will not take the time to lodge an official complaint. Just like I won't complain to the Hilton Hotel in Hawaii for telling one of our staff, who forgot about the huge time difference, to call back at the correct time for room reservations. Or the lady at the Marriott Hotel who when asked if there was an Easter Brunch this year simply said, "I don't know." That is bad enough, but she made no effort to find out or offer to call back with the information. Yet the Marriott is known for sending out lengthy surveys to recent guests to learn how they measured up and how they can improve. For starters, inform the employees who answer the phone that there is an Easter Brunch and what time it starts and ends and the cost per person. So just how does your credit union's member service measure up? Comments? Call 1-800-345-9936, Ext. 15, or Fax 561-683-8514, or E-mail mwelch@cutimes.com.