The Worst Customer Service: CITIBANK

I banked with them for over a decade, with multiple credit cards, checking accounts, investments and home equity line of credit.

Service used to be great. This is until some genius at HQ decided that great savings could be obtained by Citibank by isolating the customers from the employees. Apparently, an analysis showed that Citibank employees 'waste' too much time taking care of their clients. Clients are a nuisance, in the mind of the corporate genius at Citibank.

It is almost impossible to get to talk with anyone that knows anything at Citibank. To start, they hide their phone numbers. Go to Citibank.com and try to find a local number for any branch. They are not listed.

When I found what appeared to be a local number for their Coral Springs, FL branch, I got into VR (Voice Response) hell. Several options are given for 'self-servicing' (aka: help yourself and don't interrupt us, we have better things to do that waste our time talking to our customers). You are asked to enter your account number 'to help our associates'. I did not call to 'help their associates' but to have the 'associates help me'!

Then a second menu of options is available, with none of them allowing you to actually speak with a human being. '0' will generate a response: "sorry, we did not understand your choice". Yes, they do understand that '0' means 'I want to talk to someone', but they don't want that.

After much frustration I got a person: in India. Quite far from my branch in Coral Springs. This person, taking enormous amount of (my) time being very polite, respectful, asking permission to do anything short of breathing while talking with me, very courteously indicated that she could not provide me with the local phone number to my branch. She does not have that information... believe that!

Of course, I was asked to repeat my account number, the same I had entered on the phone keypad a few minutes earlier.

So I asked to be transferred to the branch, beginning with the branch manger down the line to simply 'anybody' ('can you please get the janitor on the line?' included) but they all were busy talking with other customers...

I could not get connected with anyone at the branch, not even given their real phone number to call them directly.

I am sure Citibank is saving big time by keeping us, pesky customers, away from their employees who are busy at work.

I suggest an even better way of saving money for Citibank: shut the doors, close your operations and you won't have to spend another dime!

Pablo Vitaver.

The Death of Customer Service

How can you beat routing your customer service calls offshore to benefit from much lower costs? The calls go through VOIP (Voice Over Internet Protocol) which is basically free and they are handled by people making a fraction of our domestic counterparts.

Corporate America figured this long ago, and now most large corporations route their calls elsewhere in the globe.

Besides the downside to the Nation resulting on the exporting of so many jobs, the service we receive is consistently lousy.

When we call Customer Service or Technical Support, an English speaking person on the other end is not enough.

A language is made of more than using and understanding the right words. It includes the rhythm, energy level and all the nuances implicated in 'communicating' orally.

I.e. if I call and describe my entire question or issue while the agent patiently waits for the whole explanation only to say (at his/her turn) that I am talking with the wrong person and I need to be transferred just to start again, from scratch. This would not happen if my call is handled locally, as we allow for the apparent rudeness of 'interruption" as I am describing the wrong problem to the wrong person.

In that case I expect to be interrupted, as a way to save my time. Politeness indicates these foreign call-takers to let me talk, and waste my time.

I also need somebody that will go right to the point, quickly, saving me time. I don't need to talk with someone that spends half of her/his (and my) time apologizing for putting me on hold, asking permission again and again to put me on hold, reciting my name at every chance, etc. Just solve my problem, and do it fast. That is the real American Way.

I also expect the person to emphasize what is important, not to have a low, monotone, polite tone of voice out of 'respect' for me. True respect is for my time.

None of this works with foreign call takers in remote locations. Service rendered abroad really sucks.

Pablo Vitaver.