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The unintended consequences of Washington Mutual policies!

By: Jonathan Klein

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I want to share an experience that I had this week that has several lessons one of which being the law of unintended consequences.

After meeting with a client two months ago and being paid with a check I decided that before I went back to the office, I would take my client’s check and cash it at their bank. Occasionally, I will do this with small checks instead of running to my bank, which is out of the way. My client’s bank was Washington Mutual/Chase and upon arriving at the bank and requesting to cash the check I was told that I would be charged $5.00 for this service because the bank branch I was at was not the client’s home branch. Well, you can imagine what I thought, and of course I didn’t cash the client’s check. I didn’t need the money that bad! However, I was perturbed to say the least. What kind of idiot arrived at this policy or better put scheme.

Well, today I met with another client who also paid me with a check drawn from Washington Mutual/Chase and I decided that I would attempt this one more time, but I would go to their home bank branch. I arrived at the bank and was surprised to find no line, and so I walked to the first teller with a representative behind it. I was told to please wait behind the line even though this teller was doing absolutely nothing. I naturally apologized and backed away while I watched a second teller stand behind her station doing absolutely nothing. After five minutes, I was prompted to step forward and was told that I would be charged $6.00 to cash my check. I indicated to the teller that the check was written from their bank and branch, but was quickly told that all banks charge non-customers to cash their checks, and that they would waive this fee if I established an account with them. My reply was very simple and to the point, why would I want to have a relationship with a bank that treats non-customers with such disdain? I of course took my check back and vow that I will never do business with Washington Mutual/Chase ever!

With full disclosure, I have long history with this institution from when Washington Mutual had a mortgage wholesale division and would call on my Mortgage Practice. I can tell you without reservation that their service was utterly the worst and what is most mind numbing is that they would often send e-mail surveys requesting our input about their quality of interaction with their clients. In one of those surveys I was very candid and rated them as the worst mortgage provider we dealt with. Our practice was quickly cut off from Washington Mutual’s loan programs! I have no regrets about what I wrote and can tell you that their action only served to solidify my opinion that they were one very poorly run institution.

Back to my initial sentence about unintended consequences. Someone sitting in Ivory tower somewhere thought to themselves “How are we going to pay back our TARP funds? I know let's charge non-bank clients for cashing their checks!” At $6.00 dollars a check, and the teller taking a minute or less to complete the transaction, equates to Washington Mutual making $320.00 per hour to cash non-bank customer’s checks. Nice profit, don’t you think? And remember, that it was your and my taxes that bailed this bank out! The unintended consequence is that instead of wowing non-bank clients with their service and love of customers and growing bank deposits organically they are alienating prospective customers and creating ill will that leads to articles like this one. What kind of press would you want for your organization? The other and likely more terrible unintended consequence is what this policy does to the Washington Mutual employee who has to face a person like myself and hear our ire for such a shortsighted policy. What do you the think the average employee of Washington Mutual feels about their employer? While they may be happy to have a job, I doubt their satisfied and from the interactions that I’ve had with Washington Mutual employees, past and present, they clearly don’t represent the organization as if their proud to be apart of it!

Here are the lessons I hope that this article will convey to readers. When making policy for your organization ask if it welcomes both clients and prospective clients or appears to be all about making a buck for the organization. If it doesn’t make sense to the public it is a bad decision. Secondly, empower your associates to make decisions that are in the best interest of your clients and they in turn will make decisions that are good for your business. Thirdly, reward behavior that attracts new clients and retains existing ones while retraining those that push clients away. And finally, make sure that your advertising message is consistent with what clients and prospective clients experience when they utilize your service! If too many customers receive service that is incongruent with what your marketing message claims you stand for you’ll end up reading articles about your organization like this one about Washington Mutual/Chase.

Until my next article consider joining my weekly coaching calls by registering with this link. https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/633060643 or follow me on Linked In http://www.linkedin.com/in/jonathanklein45

Article Source: http://depositarticles.com/

Jonathan Klein is a Sales expert with 25 years experience in B2B and consumer driven sales along with management and training of sales forces. In his first book "The Path To Just Being Nice" Jonathan demonstrates that nice is not just a strategy, but rather has actual processes that if you practice you can increase your "Nice Quotient" and the quality of your life. Jonathan likes to say that "Nice is one of the only renewable resources that when practiced can go on in others for ever." Reach

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