All our banks now claim to be ‘customer friendly'; nothing is too hard for them, no request or service too tough. They say (their ads tell us) that they will deliver. And quickly.
That's comforting when you're on a lunch break with only a limited time for ‘chores', such as going into a bank branch, the last thing you want to do.
But sometimes needs must prevail. The service you require can't be done on the Net, by phone or at an ATM, or even by snail mail. Only the old-fashioned way will do, by going to a bank branch.
So you find yourself waiting in the queue, glancing at your watch every few minutes.
Finally, the time comes and you are called to the desk. You want to cash an overseas cheque…but… what? They can't cash it because it's been folded? Aghhh!
You begin to argue, the teller disappears to talk to management. Another long wait, and finally he is back, and not with good news.
You walk out, creased cheque still in hand, flustered, hungry and late for your next meeting.
Sound familiar? It must be at one bank.
Last August, the Commonwealth Bank acknowledged that it had a problem with its customer satisfaction and CEO Ralph Norris vowed there would be a change.
"We've got to lift our game and we've got a lot of initiatives going on within the organisation to do just that", said Norris at the time of the 2006 profit announcement. Although exactly what these initiatives were, he didn't explain.
So almost 10 months on, has anything changed for the better for someone who wants to cash a ‘folded cheque'?
Under the reign of his predecessor, David Murray, the CBA had developed a reputation for poor customer satisfaction and slow service as staff numbers were cut and jobs eliminated in a massive re-organisation of its retail division.
Profits and the share price improved, but the customer experienced lagged behind.
That was one of the first things Mr Norris spotted when he took the reins from Mr Murray and he has made a big thing out of trying to drive change and improve the experience for its millions of customers on the Net, on the phone or at an ATM.
In August of last year, the CBA's staff-to-customer ratio in business banking was a massive one to 400, with, as Mr Norris said, "far too many customers per relationships manager".
Hence, the CBA vowed to employ more members of staff.
According to Michael Blomfield, Executive General Manager of Local Business Banking at the CBA, this year the Commonwealth bank hired just below 100 new staffers. Added to the staff hired at the end of 2006, this brings the Staff to Customer ratio down to approximately 250 to one.
This ratio is now on a par with those of rival Westpac. While still at the high end of the scale, this number it is an improvement nonetheless, and according to the CBA, has already had a positive effect on both quality of relationships and the number of complaints received.
But top points to the CBA for being so forthcoming with these numbers. Out of all the major banks, Westpac and the CBA were the only ones willing to give definite figures, with spokespeople from the ANZ, St George, and NAB just talking vague, business waffle.
According to Mr Blomfield: "It took us a while to wrap our heads around all the changes we needed to make. We saw that the model needed to change. Before, the industry was servicing X number of clients per staff ratio. But then the moment a staff member goes to the bathroom that service stops.
"So we introduced a scale model so that any time anything like that happens, another staff member can access that information."
This has been notable in the new phone service that the CBA uses, an area of service which may have seen the most changes.
"We have new phone technology that means we will answer every single call that is made, and we have also turned off our voicemail.
"Thus, that number 250 to one isn't comparable to other banks because we have a phone system that allows that we don't miss anything."
It isn't comparable? But this phone service is not hugely different from that of other banks. It is a recorded message with a keypad activated service that puts callers in a queue.
The ANZ, which prides itself on its customer service initiatives, released figures in its 2007 interim report which state it answers over 90% of its calls to its enquiry numbers within 60 seconds.
So this leads one to believe that the CBA's telephone service is not a completely new-fangled idea. It is all comparative.
One of the biggest changes is that now when you call your relationships manager or similar, you won't need to wait for them to call you back if they aren't in (and they never are when you need them), because now your details can be accessed by another member of staff.
The CBA has definitely taken a few steps in the right direction, although Mr Blomfield didn't really address the issue of customer service and handling within the branches, which still leaves little to be desired.
Perhaps they need to hire tellers with a more flexible approach to their customers. And to folded cheques.
Luckily in this situation, the ANZ didn't see any problem with crease marks.
"The problem at the branches is only part of the story. But it is still early days and we hope we are systematically cracking that problem", says Blomfield.
We hope so too and so do shareholders, although the market believes the CBA is performing, with its shares up by around 25 per cent since last August.
