I recently fired Chase as my bank. As much as I would like to say that their recent bad press (re: recession) was my reasoning, it wasn't -- I simply received piss poor customer service.
The trouble started a year ago when I created accounts for my consulting business and they suggested that I turn my basic personal accounts into "Premier" accounts. I'm always really weary of any deal where there doesn't seem to be much of a point to it, but for some reason I allowed myself to be convinced. I was
unbelievably clear with them that I wasn't interested in any sort of upgrade that would cost me monthly service fees. They assured me that as long as I kept a minimum balance of $15,000 across ALL of my accounts (including business and brokerage accounts), there would be no fees on any of my accounts. This wasn't a problem for me (not because I'm rich...believe me. I just make it an absolute priority to have emergency living expenses).
For about 9 months, there were no problems. I could easily import my information into
mint.com and there were no service fees.
Suddenly, I started receiving seemingly random service charges. $20 at first, and then $10 here and $10 there. After several phone calls and constant battles using their built-in "secure message system," I was able to get a few of the charges reversed. I even received, in writing, confirmation that my assertion about the minimum balance across business and personal accounts was correct. However, on subsequent phone calls I would get very confusing clarifications on that statement. Hours of my time had been wasted (including visits on work days to local branches) -- I simply wasn't being treated like I mattered.
On the day that I closed my accounts, the lady was very polite, but reiterated that my assertion had been incorrect. I pulled out my email correspondences and read to her how I had been told otherwise. She stumbled for a moment in understanding all of the plans that Chase offers, but in the end settled with the notion that I had been mistaken.
Lesson To Be Learned: Be absolutely clear with your customers (which may require simplifying your offerings). This whole ordeal might have simply been due to misguided understandings of all the crazy little rules that each of their products require. Misunderstandings on my part and on the part of Chase associates. On top of that, Chase handled the situation that unfolded in a very unfashionable manner.
There is a basic disconnect between the people dealing directly with customers and the marketers and decision makers at corporations like this. We're all aware of it, but we rarely go beyond being supremely irritated. I do my best to treat big corporations the same way that I would treat a face-to-face interaction with an actual business owner. And from this perspective, Chase failed in a major way.
