CSC CHRONICALS 6
From: tntpucca@mindspring.com
Date: March 23, 2011 5:18:53 PM EDT
To: tony@tonypucca.com
So I’ve seen Chase bank has a new ploy.
Once you walk in instead of allowing you to go to a teller, seems like they want you to go to the desk to speak a live person/banker. I walked in just simply looking to make a payment to my account by filling out a statement at the counter as I usually do. I was approached by not one, but two different bankers, in two separate instances asking what I was doing. as if I were someone ready to rob the place. It really made me feel uneasy. My first instinct, considering I was ticking away on my iPhone at the time, was that they were worried I wasn’t there to bank but to do some surveillance or steal some code through my smart phone. To the first banker, I muttered one or two things about how I was there to pay my HEL OC. She continued to question me — was I making a payment? Transfer? Deposit? I felt like saying, “Look, I’m not an idiot. Just let me bank!”
The last banker finally convinced me to meet him at his desk — mostly because he wouldn’t leave me alone and kept looking over my shoulder — so that I can make my HELOC payment. When I did, I got what I expected –him trying to sell me on some additional services. This is all while he’s looking through all my accounts, line by line, surveying my financial condition. And of course the guy really couldn’t navigate his way around the computer. So this was already taking about five times as long as just walking up to a teller, handing her my payment statement, and getting the job done, getting my receipt and walking out the door.
With this eerie beckoning to the formidable banker’s desk, I think Chase is trying to make you see that they’re finally getting the message that long-term sales are based on ongoing customer relationships instead of selling. Albeit, they’re doing it very awkwardly. For them, given their largeness, seeming small and sociable is never going to happen.
So of course I wasn’t able to get up from this guy’s desk without being handed two business cards, letting him look over all my accounts — and him commenting that “everything looks okay.” He then” asked me if I owned a business, and I was stupid enough to say yes. Of course, another two business cards dropped into my hand. It ended with a handshake, and I was out of there.
Lesson learned. Don’t follow the banker to his desk. You’ll be in trouble.
On the way out of Atlanta bread, across the street right after a bowl of some rather nice White Cheddar Chipotle soup, I saw that there was one of those coupon magazines in the vestibule rack for local businesses. On the cover was a full-page shot of a kid skiing. Being an avid skier, I picked up the book to see what kind of ski deal they had inside. There was none.
Note to local coupon magazine publishers everywhere: If you’re going to put a picture of kids skiing on the cover of your coupon magazine, make sure there are coupons for at least one ski slope inside the magazine. Or at least a ski shop. Or at least some place that makes or carries snow.
In the real world of advertising and clam bakes, they call that bait and switch.
Sent from my iPhone