Determined To Act Like It Never Happened

banging on about advertising, marketing and social media

24 November 2008 8 Comments

Before I’d entered the office today I received a phone call from my girlfriend asking if I had lost money from the Commonwealth Bank doubling up my transactions. And then I heard it on the radio. And then on the online news sites.

“Fantastic,” I thought. “I didn’t overdraw my bills account because of my adhoc purchasing of a giant rubber band. It was the banks fault.”

So, like tens of thousands of Australians this morning, I logged onto the Commonwealth Bank site to check my account. I was greeted by this on the homepage:

It made me laugh a little.

Secure, strong and solid? Here I was logging on to make sure that my bank hadn’t misplaced my money and they are promising strength. Sure they got their PR releases out but forgot the one place that they have full control and all of their effected customers will visit.

A simple message apologising for the mistake, a summary of what to check for and a number/email address to contact for further queries would have put me at ease and assured me that my bank is doing all that they can to help me get my money back. Instead, ignoring that it ever happened makes the Comm Bank appear disconnected, irresponsible and makes me question all their marketing promises going forward.

But maybe I’m just angry because I can’t blame the bank. The giant rubber band was at fault.

8 Comments »

Matt Granfield said:

Spot on Nathan! Nice blog too

# 25 November 2008 at 1:53 am

Nathan Bush said:

thanks Matt- you helped me get inspired to get this up and running!

# 25 November 2008 at 2:35 am

Gavin Heaton said:

Determined to be Ignorant?
Nice post.

# 25 November 2008 at 2:46 am

Nathan Bush said:

Thanks Gavin. “Determined to” lends itself to so many variations, especially in times of negative publicity… if only Fast Forward was still around.

# 25 November 2008 at 4:43 am

Kate said:

Haha jinx Nathan… well apart from that I posted considerably later

I can’t rant too much at the moment though, as I seem to have done quite well out of their blunder so far. Only the morning will tell though.

Welcome to the blogosphere and nice name.

# 25 November 2008 at 7:13 am

Kate said:

Oh yeah… Blog name that is… although Nathan is nice too!

# 25 November 2008 at 7:14 am

Anonymous said:

As soon as I logged into NetBank (about 9.20am on 25/11/08) there was a message imforming me of a problem.

When I couldn’t work out WTF was wrong with the account I called 132221. IVR immediately presented a message confirming the problem and advised that there was an extended hold time (for obvious reasons).

After 12mins 32sec on hold I spoke to a nice lass (who was in Hobart, she said) who helped me reconcile the errors being shown on the account. She reassured me it would be fixed later that day.

Just logged onto NetBank. Problem indeed fixed.

# 25 November 2008 at 2:03 pm

Nathan Bush said:

Good to know, thanks Anon. You are the first that I heard of to receive a pro-active message personally sent from the bank.

There was no doubt (in my mind at least) that the Comm Bank would make amends. My point is that I believe that a greater level of transparency and responsibility should have been assumed by the Comm Bank online. Not only to put their customer’s mind at ease but to retain the strength their brand.

# 25 November 2008 at 3:40 pm