Selling getting in the way of service

I am going to use this entry to have a customer service grip about banks (although the same is true for the Post Office these days). Yes, I know it’s an easy target but they set themselves up for it.

Now the bank branch I use is OK. It costs me money to park there, but there are some transactions you can’t do online or over the phone because they require a signature, or in my case they are foreign exchange transactions which the bank (because of perfectly reasonable currency rules) means I have to be there.

That’s not my gripe. Nor is the fact that I have to queue for five or ten minutes, or sometimes longer, whilst the number of customers always exceeds the number of tellers. Nor is it the lack of teller staff. I understand the economics of running a retail bank branch.

No my complaint is that each transaction with a bank teller always ends with the teller trying to sell a service or product to the customer. I do not think I have ever seen this turned into an appointment or a sale and all that happens is that I and the other customers in the queue are kept waiting that bit longer. I do not know how much time would actually be saved but at least the frustration level of waiting impatiently in the queue would be considerably eased if we didn’t have to wait for the sales pitch after every service.