Customer Service...
 

About 3 months ago I went to my Bank to pay in a cheque of a decent sum that was inheritance from my late uncle. The Bank Clerk looked at the cheque and her face lit up and she said "wow...thats a nice amount..are you going to treat yourself?"....I became very conscious of the fact the 2 people behind me in the queue were now aware I was paying in a cheque of some value and I felt that something very private had been shared with strangers. I found her comment unacceptable...but decided not to say anything.
Today I went in to pay in another cheque from HMRC...another nice amount and the same girl served me...she took the Cheque and then asked me "Did you know you had this coming or did it just drop onto your doormat????...WTF :conf: I told her I knew it was coming but she gave me no reason for her bizarre question...and I really should have asked. Instead I asked the lady at the Front Desk if I could have a quiet word with the Manager...she said she was the Manager. I told her of the interaction from the young lady from my previous encounter and now this one and that I found it very inappropriate. She defended her saying she is just trying to build a rapport... I said you build a Rapport by asking about the weather etc...but her comments were intrusive to the point of breaking confidentiality... The Manager said she saw no problem with her comments :shrug:
So I took her name and just made a complaint to Head Office..

Do you think her comments were acceptable?...more so on the first occassion but even the second one, although harmless, was really none of her business.

If those were her comments then you’ve massively overreacted to friendly throw away remarks

The second scenario sounds like she was trying to build rapport with you.

The first situation is bad though because she outed to strangers that you had a large sum of money coming, that's highly unprofessional imo.

Nah not acceptable given she's in an industry which will handle private and sensitive information, I think that's really unprofessional. Like in your case with the death of a relative, the circumstances of getting the money might be quite difficult and not something to celebrate and think about 'treating yourself' with. And yeah you don't know who's listening

Data privacy is paramount. With scammers around in their thousands, that is just not acceptable

Todays comment was inoffensive but still a little bizarre. I guess after the first occassion her comments today shows her idea of 'rapport' seems to relate to the cheque she is paying in and thats what I find inappropriate. She should really only be referring to the cheque or the amount if she cannot read it clearly...but she should not be making it a topic of conversation about it for the sake of building a rapport.

yeah I agree, it was inappropriate especially as there were customers queuing behind you and also as Matt said this cheque could have come from any source and you might not feel like celebrating it.

Building rapport, are innocuous questions, like How are you today, oh its not very nice out there, or its super hot or that is a nice outfit you are wearing, not wow thats a ton of cash...

Yes that was another point...it was in relation to the death of a close relative.
It was very unprofessional.

Sorry to hear of your Uncle passing Rusti :hug:

Same here.

Yes Terrible bank workers
wrong way to treat you.

Well if you receive inheritance from a close family relative and a young girl across the counter gives you a massive smile and asks you excitedly if you are going to treat yourself...I wonder if you will find that appropriate?
....and then if you get mugged for your bank card 2 days later and find your bank cleared out of thousands...you will thank that sweet girl for her lack of confidentiality :hee:

Aaaww Thanks Cherie...:kiss:

Thank you..xx

Lesson 1: If someone is paying in a lot of money, do not comment on it in case of prying ears.

She was 100 percent in the wrong.

As was her manager.

Yeah it was not very professional and think you are right to highlight it. It always gets me when they insist on counting any money you are withdrawing loudly too - like everyone in the queue knows exactly what you are withdrawing and what will be on your person as you are walking out.

When my mum passed, her and my dad had a fairly substantial amount of cash in the house which I made him put in the bank and the teller then said something similar to my dad - along the lines of "wow, that's a lot of cash, are you selling all your worldy goods lol" - again just a quip but upset my dad as in a way it was all my mum's wordly goods

i think what we are seeing is more knock ons from Covid. They can't get the right quality of staff

I tried to phone my local Boots for a week and they just didn't pick up the phone. I eventually went to them in person and commented on it while i was there and the shop assistant actually shouted at me that they were much to busy to answer the phone :laugh:

Or in that case it might be the quantity, simply not enough people to answer the phone

Shouting at you isn't the best way to explain that though lol

I had a similar situation when I worked in retail management and one of my shops had a post office. One of the staff would sometimes comment on the mail like 'ohh speeding fine, been naughty have ya'. She always thought it was just banter and most people took it that way but I did have to say that we shouldn't really make comment on the mail people are sending as it's often private and people might take it the wrong way. She just looked at me like I was a miserable bastard lol

:joker:

What next Doctors shouting "can the bloke with the STD come to room 4 please?"

would Bill Swollen Dick of 5 high street come to room 4 :laugh:

Well to be honest…I now work at a medical practice. If someone comes in and wants to see a Doctor we have to put their symptoms in the computer for them to be triaged. These are personal symptoms being explained to Receptionists in a Waiting room…nothing really private. If they don’t give us details they don’t get triaged…I feel for many.

Customer service is dreadful atm…standards have clearly dropped in general.

Change banks Rustic , totally out of order, building a rapport !! :laugh:since when have banks ever done that ~ oh when you pay a lot of money in.

Yes it’s all wrong….the training given is clearly really poor.

Well it’s in the hands of Head office now who totally agreed with me…let’s see what they come back with…:wavey:

You must have some strange bank clerks where you live, i've never known or heard of an employee blurting out someone's business for a queue of strangers to hear.

If it was a one to one meeting in their office , then that's a bit different but again still an odd thing to say especially if they know it's a bereavement? or did they not? .

I don’t think it matters you don’t blurt out private business in a public place whatever the circumstances

Well of course she didnt know it was money from a Bereavement...that doesnt mean she should telling everyone in the Bank its a sizeable cheque and she should not be asking me impertinent questions as to how I am going to spend it.
When you work in a Bank and have privy to Customers savings etc you are expected to be discreet under the Data protection Act...just like if you work in any place where you have access to private details. You should also be made aware in training that any monies paid in are sometimes obtained from unfortunate cicumstances so discretion and respect is of the utmost importance.

Nosey cow.

If I was in this position I would be a little annoyed tbh. When I was working at Sainsburys we would have to cash out peoples lottery winnings but if it was an amount more than £500 we weren’t able to cash them out, the person would have to go to a post office to collect the winnings.

This happened to me once when we were fairly busy, I put the ticket in the machine and it said the winnings exceeded the amount we were able to cash out. I walked over to the lady and told her to come over to the end till where there wasn’t many people around and then quietly told her the situation and what she needed to do and I instantly told her to sign the ticket on the back so that she was the only one who can claim the winnings.

For me it just seemed like common sense, I wouldn’t want to shout out in front of loads of people that she had potentially a big win because it’s not other peoples business to know that and I certainly wouldn’t be happy if that was done to me.

To me this situation with you Rusti is similar in my eyes and I’m surprised the bank clerk didn’t have the common sense to not say something like that so I would be annoyed about it 100%.

Have you ever thought about donating to the Alf society Rusti?

We save little animals and starving children and we like holidays in St Tropez and Monte Carlo

….maybe when I win the Lottery Alf..:laugh:

Yes Good you helped that lady
with over £500 win.
Sign the Ticket,
then go to a Big Post Office.

A Great help in that store

Thank you all for your comments… sometimes when these things happen to you you do question if you have over reacted. However having worked in Customer Service all of my life I recognise poor behaviour. I guess I was a bit taken aback when the Manager defended her behaviour as being acceptable :shrug:

Let’s only hope those that condone such behaviour get a taste of it in their lives and don’t overreact :hee:

Like I said I've never heard this happen before, if anything I always thought bank clerks would be more discreet ... when it's huge amounts of money.

But no matter what the circumstance or the amount of money, it's unprofessional. I know I wouldn't be happy with this if it happened to me.

Exactly.