A Mickey Mouse Bank

From time to time, Disneyland conducts exit surveys of adults leaving the park and asks them a group of questions with one being: "What is the most memorable thing about the Park?" With all the different rides, attractions, food and entertainment, the #1 thing that impresses customers is usually "cleanliness." Our take away here is that you can spend a lot of money on a new branch or product, but it is really the little things that count most in the eyes of the customer. In many of our strategic planning sessions, we attempt to define what it means to deliver "superior customer service." Case in point - we recently conducted a study that looked at a representative sample of responses from an independent bank website. We sent an e-mail to the "Contact Us" address, describing a growing small business with $20k to invest for a 2Y period of time and inquired about the opening of a transaction account. We asked for rates, more information and to be contacted via e-mail if possible. To our shock, dismay and embarrassment, 50% of the banks failed to respond at all. No, response, no "Thanks for the inquiry, we will be right back to you," – we got nothing. We are not quite sure what "quality customer service" means, but we can tell you what it is not. The only thing worse than not having a website, is having a website and not using it. If banks can't do the easy things like following up to an e-mail inquiry, how are they going to do the big things like getting loan documents out on time? To that end, we were curious and so we sent a similar inquiry to a group of banks where a loan officer or department was discernable on the website. Sure enough, while a response rate of 73% was not up to our standards (how hard is it to answer 100% of suitable inquiries within 48 hours?), this effort does lead to several conclusions. The first is that either the difference in response rate was a random variation, or it could be that banks are more sensitive to lending inquiries. If the latter, this would also be a travesty, considering the value of deposits are so much greater than loans. We are not sure what is going on, but it is clear that banks may want take a look at all aspects of customer service - particularly their response to web inquiries. For fun, we contacted Disneyland through their website and asked if Mickey will be at the Park. Sure enough, we received a response within an hour. When it comes to web response and taking care of the "little things," this is one area where it pays to be a "Mickey Mouse Bank."