How My Bank Convinced Me Which Car NOT to Buy (and Why You Should Care)

My car dealership and my bank typically don’t occupy the same space in my brain, but recent interactions with each uncovered some important professional lessons about the razor thin line between a good and a great experience in today’s customer-driven marketplace.

The interaction with my car dealership was the result of a pesky check engine light. We have owned the car for about two years and bought it certified pre-owned largely due to the manufacturer’s service reputation and the fact that it came with a warranty. We’ve had a couple of issues here and there, but nothing major, and the service from the dealership has always been great.

For this particular issue, I left the car with the dealer on my way to work one morning, received a call around mid-day that they had fixed the problem (a faulty sensor) and picked the car up on my way home. All of the work was covered under warranty--there was no charge. A pretty good experience overall!

Two days later, the check oil light came on because we had passed the mileage threshold where it needed to be changed. I was a little frustrated to drop it off at the dealer just days after I was there, but the work was done in a couple of hours and I didn’t really think much of it.

At least, not until an interaction I had the very next day with my bank.

We had recently received a $75 check in the mail from the property management company that owned an apartment we left close to four years ago. It was a bank check written to the property management company from our own checking account. Without a clue as to why we received it or what to do with it, I called my bank to figure it all out.

The customer service representative quickly determined that I had inadvertently selected the property management company as the payee for a $75 utility bill in their bill payment service. She voided the check, credited the $75 back to our account and instructed me to make the payment to the utility company as soon as possible. Problem solved. And if my bank was like my car dealership, it all would have ended there.

It didn’t.

The representative also saw that I hadn’t made a payment to the property management company in several years and asked if I was still a tenant. When I told her I was not, she recommended that we delete them and any other old payees to avoid a problem like this again. Just like that, the experience was transformed. It took her all of 10 seconds to do and it immediately reinforced why I choose to do business with this company.

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It also made me think of how similar (or dissimilar) the bank interaction was to what I experienced with my car dealership. Why couldn’t they have noticed that I was going to need an oil change soon and called me to ask if I wanted it done while I was in the first time? I went from being relatively satisfied with two separate visits (albeit with some undirected frustration at the fact that I had to be there twice in one week) to seriously questioning the service reputation that had been so influential in our purchase decision.

We certainly aren’t rushing out to get rid of our car anytime soon as a result, but I am fairly certain that my relationship with my bank will outlast the one with my car company in the long run.

There are some simple but important lessons from these interactions that should resonate with anyone who works in a service industry, whether on the front lines, in the back office or in Marketing.

1) Focusing on Needs Versus Tasks

The technicians at my car dealership did their jobs, and to be fair, I was happy with the jobs they did. But their task-orientation created blind spots that made it impossible for them to see the bigger picture and identify then address needs that I didn’t even know I had.

The exact opposite was true of the bank representative. Her needs-orientation enabled her to not only complete the task at hand but also understand and address the bigger issue of my likelihood to make more payment mistakes in the future because of out-of-date information in the system. My satisfaction isn’t all that’s at stake here either--there is real financial impact for both companies. The few seconds it took for the bank representative to go above and beyond not only didn’t cost her company anything, it actually saved money in the long run by ensuring that I wouldn’t have to call after making the same mistake again. Multiply that over thousands or millions of customers, and you’re looking at significant numbers. In contrast, if my second visit to the car dealership meant that they could not service another customer that day, then there is real opportunity cost associated with their failure to recognize all of my needs the first time the car was there. The erosion of my trust in the dealership has even greater financial implications if it eventually factors into my decision not to repurchase this type of vehicle.

2) Technology is Meaningless Without the Right Human Element

There is no doubt that technology is a critical component in effective customer relationship management, but technology is not the shortcut to delivering a world-class experience. I am quite sure that the bank representative’s system did not remind her to recommend that I delete old payees from my bill pay service. Likewise, I am confident that at some point during my first visit to the dealership, they had the vehicle connected to a computer to diagnose the problem with the car. Local mom and pop stores have effectively managed customer relationships for decades without the assistance of costly and complex CRM systems simply by knowing their customers and striving to provide a level of service that makes considering alternatives a non-starter. My bank – a well-known, national brand – has done something that is exceedingly rare in today’s short-term, profit-focused environment by effectively scaling the personal service that I have always received from my local hardware store, wine shop or dry cleaner. I am sure it didn’t happen overnight, but from my perspective as a customer, it was well worth the time, effort and resources it took to achieve.

3) Customer expectations and the new ‘Competitive Set’

Quite possibly the most important lesson that these interactions should make clear is that in the world of customer experience, your competition is every other company with which your customers do business. The car dealership may not think that it is competing for my loyalty with my bank, but my opinion of the dealership – and ultimately of the brand - suffered greatly because it did not nearly deliver the level of service that I got from my bank. Failure to recognize this is akin to a homeowner with the nicest house on the block that can’t figure why his house won’t sell, unaware of the fact that houses in different neighborhoods or towns are simply more attractive to prospective buyers. Identify companies that are known for their customer-orientation regardless of industry, or think about the companies to which you are personally most loyal, and work to apply their approach to the experience you deliver to your customers.