While conducting some research for a new business opportunity recently I needed to better understand some of the everyday banking processes that most of us take for granted – Direct Debits, Standing Orders etc.

As always my research started on the Internet, I looked through several banks websites but after wading through pages and pages of their websites there simply isn’t enough detail, or if it’s there I can’t find it. No problem I thought, I’ll phone my bank and ask, I’m sure they’ll know.

So I got the local branches phone number off the website and gave them a call. At this point we came across the first problem; the number puts you through to a call centre. Quite why I’m not sure, as the call centre couldn’t answer my question – they weren’t even interested in trying – I would have to speak to my local business manager. If I could only ask my local manager why couldn’t I call him directly?

When they put me through I duly asked the manager my simple questions:

• What does it cost to process direct debits?
• What paperwork is involved in processing each direct debit?

Nice and simple I thought. Unfortunately my bank manager decided to ignore my questions and instead explain to me why a new business could not accept direct debits. I thanked him but asked if he could answer the questions I asked, he duly promised to send me details in the post, excellent I thought, I’ll have written material to file and refer back to when it’s needed.

Unfortunately when I received his letter a few days later instead of any further information he simply wrote to me explaining that a new business would not be able to process direct debits as the business is too new. He made no mention of my questions.

I called him again, thanked him for his letter and asked if he could answer my two simple questions. Once again he explained why we could not process direct debits and I explained that I understood, that the business was not intending to process direct debits and that I still needed to know the answer to my questions. He promised to send me further information.

Sadly his next letter was more or less exactly the same as the first and failed to address either of my questions. In frustration I phoned again and once again explained that I understood what he was saying but I would still like an answer to my questions.

Finally after once again explaining that the business could not process direct debits he relented and agreed to point me to the right page on their website to get the information. I was not amused to find out that he could easily have pointed me to the right page on the website instead of wasting so much of my time on three phone calls and two letters.

I asked why it had been so difficult to get a simple answer, when all he had to do was point me to the right web page, which would have saved both of us considerable time. So he once again explained that a new business could not process direct debits, while I pondered once more upon poor level of service British businesses offer.

Now it’s fair to say that he annoyed me by continually ignoring my questions and explaining what I already knew. While annoying the customer is not a customer service strategy I’d advocate in this case I think the problem is much simpler. He did not ask the most basic question of all. The question that every single customer facing person in your business should be trained to ask:

How can I help you?

If you truly believe what they are asking for is wrong then it should be followed closely by:

What are you trying to achieve?

Rudyard Kipling wrote:

I keep six honest serving-men
(They taught me all I knew);
Their names are What and Why and When
And How and Where and Who.

I doubt he was thinking of customer service at the time, but I believe his serving-men would help us all offer better customer service.

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