Sunday, November 20, 2011

Fiver Dollars for the Privilege of Doing Business With Bank of America? Really?

Bank of America could learn something from a McDonald's.  The customer is always right, and expects quick and accurate service.  Unfortunately, the executive team at Bank of America regards it's customers as nothing more than suckers without options, and thus charges them as it sees fit.

So what's the latest offense?  Five dollar monthly fees for debit card holders.  This follows questionable overage charges practices, mediocre customer service complaints and a myriad list of poor business practices.  In a recent New York Times article found at http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/20/business/when-business-cant-foresee-consumer-outrage-economic-view.html?ref=business, we're given a few examples of what people perceive as fair and unfair business practices toward customers.  The gist is that we understand supply and demand.  We might lament high gas prices, but we expect and understand it before Thanksgiving.  We don't like paying 20 dollars for a snow shovel when in the summer it was 15 dollars, but hey, there's snow on the drive, and you should have gotten it when it was cheap.  We get that.

What we don't get, is a business charging us for the simple privilege of holding and investing our money for a profit, spending it recklessly, taking our tax dollars to bail them out, and then charging us ridiculous fees to pay off OUR loan to them.  Bank of America has forgotten there are many fish in the sea, and in a competitive market, you'd better encourage customer loyalty.  The article states that, "LARGE businesses can face problems, however, when they forget about the long term."  That's the case with Bank of America.  People expect small offenses from time to time.  People expect you to try to make money.  What they loathe and close accounts for is a list of offenses they see over a period of time.  Long term stuff.  


Bank of America has gotten so big that it treats humans as mere assets resigned to the bank's authority.  It pays lip service to the idea of customer service but has failed in it's execution.  Perhaps it's time to show them how capitalism works by investing in the competition.

2 comments:

  1. Good article. I would suggest that in the first sentence that you take the "a" out, and just have it say "Bank of America could learn something from McDonald's" I'm assuming that this is your business article right?!? Also maybe include a few more sources as well. Other than that good article.

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  2. Good a conveying you own ideas, but you could use about four more sources for citing purposes. Plenty of good comparison examples. Good Job.

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