Bad Customer Service, part II

As mentioned in Josh's comment, customer service is really a part of every company, and in my opinion a part of any company's survival. In any case, I thought I'd let everyone in on our latest bad customer service. This time it wasn't necessarily rudeness, just incompetence.

Paul and I set up new bank accounts with Mountain America Credit Union. We've been wanting to leave Washington Mutual for a bit, but we finally decided we'd do it. MACU has the best kids' program of any of the banks/credit unions around, so we set up accounts for our kids last fall. So, several weeks ago we went and set up our own accounts as well.

When we were talking about the debit cards tied to the account, the man helping us said some people come in and change the picture on their debit cards because they don't like them. Okay, whatever. After a couple of weeks of not receiving our cards in the mail we called to find out where they were. Turns out this not-so-helpful employee was supposed to give them to us when we set up the account. I guess that'll teach us for going during the last 30 minutes before the bank closes. :)

So, I went down to pick up our debit cards. I asked for them to show me the selection I could pick from. The girl said that you don't get to pick -- that the machine "just spits out whatever one it wants to." Okay, sure. I knew it was probably just that she didn't know how to put the card into the machine herself, but I figured the designs couldn't be THAT bad, could they? I hoped if there was a cutesy one that I would get it. However, I figured if they don't let you pick, then none of them must be cutesy or a man wouldn't want it.

They brought me my debit card, and it was pretty much what I anticipated -- a nice, beautiful, peaceful-looking mountain picture:



Then they brought out Paul's. I started laughing:



So much for my thought that none of them would be cutesy. I mean, look at the font!!! I told the lady that my husband would not like such a cutesy card. Mind you, I would use it in a heartbeat, but I just can't see Paul going to Home Depot and pulling out a card with such cute letters on it. HELLO! I assured the girl that Paul would be back to change out his debit card.

I later called the customer service line and asked if it really was true that you can't pick the design of your card. She said that you could pick out your design, but you had to pick from what the bank had on hand. Two strikes for us, I suppose. Not good ways to start our service with MACU, but hopefully it's just a fluke that the first two employees we encountered were eager to get rid of us quickly. Do I smell or something? :)