This blog entry was originally going to be about Rally Barbados weekend, which is what this weekend is. HOWEVER my bank has taken it upon themselves to ruin it for me. As such, I will now dedicate this blog to the Barbados National Bank.
Picture it, on my way to watch a super special stage, but first I need to buy some lunch. I don't have any cash on me, so I stop at an ATM.
Error. Unable to contact your financial institution.
"Hmmm", I think to myself, "there must be something wrong with this ATM machine, but it's probably the fault of Bank X", whose machine I'm at. "This machine must just not be working." So I hang back and watch the lady standing behind me saunter up to the machine, slip in her debit card and calmly withdraw some money. Odd. Clearly that last time was a fluke. I approach the troublesome machine again, slip in my card, enter my pin and request a withdrawal.
Error. Unable to contact your financial institution.
OK. Luckily, I live near to two BNB branches. That's part of the reason I chose them. I leave the offending ATM and drive to the nearer of the two. Surely there was some sort of communication error between the two banks, but a BNB ATM will not have any such problems. I park my car outside the machine, confident of collecting cash and being on my way. As I enter the room housing the two side by side ATM's I see flashing red lights coming from them - never a good sign. Then I read the screens.
OUT OF SERVICE
"What????? This has to be some sort of joke. Both???" Determined to get to the bottom of this I jump back into my car and race to the next branch. I park in the Airport, which incidentally isn't free, and approach the BNB office. There it is again, the flashing red light taunting me just like that girl in... That's another story.
OUT OF SERVICE OUT OF SERVICE OUT OF SERVICE
So with that I have decided to put BNB "out of service".
Now I know what you're thinking, I'm overreacting to one small, albeit inconvenient incident. Not so! A few months ago, "management" at BNB thought it would make sense to perform a major systems upgrade... IN THE MONTHS LEADING UP TO CHRISTMAS! The ATMs stopped working for weeks, as did their telephone banking system. My personal ATM card stopped working for two months. It was so bad they had to issue me a new one. Do you know what the lines are like inside a bank when their ATM cards don't work? I do, and I wish I didn't.
Most incredibly to my mind, nobody at BNB was so much as publicly castigated for this debacle, furthermore fired. This represents a stunning lack of accountability. I work in IT and if I had screwed up this badly, I would be writing this blog from the homeless shelter and waiting for the unemployment cheque to come in. Luckily for "management", Bajans are docile people. I wonder what the situation would have been like if it were Jamaica National Bank?
In spite of all of this, I convinced myself that it was for the best (see docile). At the end of the process we would have modern conveniences like internet banking. Yes, you read right. As of late 2009 BNB did not offer internet banking. Guess what, after the major systems upgrade THEY STILL DON'T OFFER INTERNET BANKING!!! IN 2010!!! Maybe the internet visited to offer its services during the time the systems were down!
Posts
Written with scathing wit *applause*
ReplyDeleteBajans need to express their displeasure with the inefficient and ineffective practices of some of our local businesses. However, this needs to be done in a civilized manner - "cussing and carrying on" gets you nowhere fast and just labels you as a troublemaker - even if what you are complaining about is true.
Keep up the good work David. This is turning out out to be an interesting blog. Blog on!
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ReplyDeleteFinally, a post I like. Keep this direction, and I'll read rather than "skim out of loyalty".
ReplyDeleteAssumably BNB had a critical ICT situation. However, in general the response of major local businesses to major faults is not adequate.
Certainly there should be some broadcast notice using the usual channels of radio etc but IMPORTANTLY, including on their website - summarizing the issue and giving a projected resolution time. Of course this means the webmaster must either be on call or has to setup some "Service Alerts" type Content Management System that service engineers/management can update in these situations. Additionally, I should be able to subscribe to a feed of service alerts from institutions critical to my convenience such as the bank, ISP, mobile carrier, telephone etc.
Additionally, the shared banking system should be able to give a more reliable message than "Error. Unable to contact your financial institution". After all the system does know what financial institution it is trying to contact. That institution should be able to post a useful message to the shared banking system summarizing the outage and suggesting what the customer can do or when to check back.
The major point is David or any customer should not have to drive around in vain. When the service is down let the customers know, when it is confirmed to be back online, do the same. Common on, use the technology for customer service!
BNB's not embracing Internet banking is completely backwards! If is certainly one of the reasons I have no desire to do business with them at present. I'm in IT, I can't support an institution that has such disrespect for TCP/IP, HTTPS etc.
I do not advocate cussing and carrying on, but after repeated issues/incompetence why not switch to that mode - maybe it becomes more memorable for the party one is communicating with? In our service, we should not drive otherwise rational customers to the point of cursing. However, some persons may be predisposed to communicating in such a manner at all times - this is a societal issue, which also needs correcting.
Really if the customer curses you about something that is true and you are management or an employee of some company, does it really make good sense to ignore the problem because it got communicated in a manner that offended you? It must be fun to take revenge on that customer, but does the revenge usually really work in such a targetted fashion?
We have a relatively disgusting society where everyone takes stuff too personal, in a self-centered, self-righteous sort of way. Often people don't want to know of their mistakes and when they know of them, they are unable still to properly correct them, or to try to understand the full scope of their error.
Certainly, the above type of approach is at odds with any learning or success in any technical or problem-solving oriented field. There is a difference between broadcasting your mistakes and being fully aware of your mistakes in effort to learn and correct them. Instead we like to perform the ostrich manoeuvre.
Keep up the good work David! You are an "agent of change".
We have taken a situation, discussed it, suggested improvements. This is beautiful!
@Jason: Service Alerts are an excellent idea. Could they not be sent to cell phones of customers? The bank requires every last bit of your life story so I imagine they have people's cell numbers.
ReplyDelete@Tessa: Good point. Personally I think I prefer to be able to query the "Service Alerts" system or to be able to "opt in" or "opt out" of them if they will be via SMS. Automatically messaging me on this stuff won't be my preference.
ReplyDeleteAlso, if the Service Alerts are location specific, I'll want to know if David's 2 closest ATMs are working in case I need to borrow some money. Unless you are set to be an interest free, long term, lender or grant provider I may not wish to know on the status of your bank. I may have a $10 balance account at your bank, the ATM won't let me withdraw that, plus the bank will make it disappear in bank charges.
Currently I don't particularly like the SMS messages LIME sends me in Barbados. I also don't like how regularly they SMS you in St. Vincent!
I don't know what others think but I prefer a service alert via e-mail to via unsolicited SMS.
Also they can charge for the "service alert request SMS" similar to how the radio stations do for shout-ups and whatever else they encourage the populace to text in on. This money could go towards their technology budget. Micro-payment at its best!