Whatever happened to service???
August 28, 2017
Written by Jason Cheetham
Remember when there was a time where you were rewarded for being a loyal client of a business or company??? Where you‘d receive a higher level of service, a cheaper price or held in higher regard for your ongoing commitment to a business or product??
Sadly, when it comes to financial services and in particular lending institutions, it seems to have become a thing of the past.
In fact in a world of new customer origination, we see the banks climbing over themselves to market and try and source new business, but do little to retain those customers already held. Remarkably, they’ll even offer more appealing “deals” to new customers than those already on their books where their level of profit or margin is already “locked in” from when they were introduced as customers.
Most of the major lending institutions regularly email us with “special offers” for new customers that they don’t dare publish and tell us to keep “hush hush” except when talking to prospective clients that are new to bank.
I wonder what the thousands of customers of those banks would think if they saw these unpublished rates out there that they themselves were not able to attain, purely for paying the price of already being with that institution…… has the world gone crazy ???
Not only do these existing clients miss out on “new to bank” offers, they are offered a lower level of service for loan maintenance and variation requests because, again, these do not add sufficient shareholder return to a bank’s bottom line like new business does. I won’t name banks but as we speak it takes 20 working days for a loan maintenance or variation request to be actioned by a large national bank (yes, nearly a full calendar month!) as opposed to 5 working days for new business to bank…. In other words origination wins out over retention every time!
Of course all the banks now have “retention teams” in place so whenever you call your bank asking for a payout figure or you’ve sent in a loan discharge form as an intention to go elsewhere, they are all over you like a sack of spuds trying to keep your business with them.
It just doesn’t seem right that they don’t give two hoots about you while you’ve been a loyal customer for so many years, holding an old lending product with an uncompetitive interest rate or paying fees that you shouldn’t be paying. I’m dumbfounded as to the majority of banks’ attitudes towards their existing customers… they’re treated as more of a nuisance than a generator of shareholder returns. Of course not ALL banks are like this but I can guarantee you the majority are!!!!
So how does your bank rate in all this????
Contact us and we will let you know because there is one thing you can be assured of ………………… WE as your broker work in your best interests at all times…… lending institutions pretend to.