All the reasons not to deal with Wells Fargo Financial
A few months ago, I made a furniture purchase, and was offered one of those “no interest for six months” deals, and took it. I put the sales receipts aside, as the furniture came with a warranty, and waited for a statement from the lender, which turned out to be Wells Fargo Financial to come. Now, six months later, I came across the paperwork and gasped, realizing I’d never made a payment yet. So I called them, and after an incredibly frustrating user experience, I finally got my account paid, and closed for good.
I thought a lot about my experience, because a usability test, or information architecture during the design phase of their site, would not have prevented this user experience from going awry. Instead, it would have required full service design to make this a satisfactory user experience. Here, then are all the ways that Wells Fargo Financial dropped the ball.
(1) Using wrong information. Despite having provided my home address and phone number, they somehow got a partial work address and sent a statement and credit card to that address. This is to an address that has something like 80 companies, and they didn’t use a suite number.
(2) Not making contact. After having my info returned, they didn’t try to make contact, letting months go by without making contact, even after I had phoned them back in January or February.
(3) Confusing me with TMI. When I made contact, they couldn’t find me in the system, then after passing me from rep to rep, each which gave me yet another customer number, at some point telling me that one of the numbers was for internal only. The agents were friendly enough, though, and after we established that my bank wasn’t set up to pay my account, I was redirected to a retail outlet to make my payment.
(4) Lack of customer focus. When I arrived at the storefront office to make a debit card payment, the door was locked because it was their lunch hour. Someone came to the door and suggested I go have lunch and return in 45 minutes. I declined, as I had other appointments awaiting me. However, given that lunch time is probably the most likely time someone can pop out from their jobs (and as a financial institution, I imagine they prefer to deal with people who have jobs) to make a payment. It’s not like they are a 1-person or 2-person shop; I counted six people in the office - you’d think they could split lunch into two shifts so someone is always around to take a payment?
(5) Defending their lack of customer focus. When I called the head office to register my incredulity about the office closure, whoever answered the phone (who insisted that he’d spoken with me earlier, though from his accent, I knew full well it wasn’t him, but that’s a whole other story) became quite insistent that the practice of closing in the middle of the day for an hour was a perfectly logical practice because of the office size and employee entitlement to a lunch hour. He was explaining it to me in a rather condescending manner, as if I didn’t get his justification. Arghhhh. If he’d just said he would pass my frustration along to the customer complaints department, that would have been enough to save the customer transaction, but he couldn’t seem to get what my problem was.
My customer service scale works like this:
A- Great service, real gems, interested in developing relationships; I’m sticking to them like glue. Example: Apex Communications
B- OK, but if a company that impressed me came along, I’d consider switching, if transferring my account
wasn’t too painful. Example: Telus for phone, internet, mobile phone
C- If a more reputable, competent option came along, I’d switch in a heartbeat, even if the process was painful. Example: ICBC (there is no alternative - it’s compulsory to deal with them)
D - Prefer deal with them because the pain of getting involved isn’t worth it; there are better alternatives out there. Wells Fargo Financial
F- I’d prefer to do without than deal with it, I find it so painful. Example: SharePoint
You can see where this company falls on my customer service scale - I’m not impressed at all. Entrepreneurs, here’s a opportunity to introduce them to the concept of service design.