Great Customer Service Experience

Today, a single employee at a huge corporation retained my business by great customer service. Any of you that have been near me during or after a retail experience in the last few years have heard my opinion of the general state of the customer service industry.

Courtney and I decided to go with Washington Mutual for our bank here. I opened us an account over a month ago. As of this morning, I still didn’t have a working ATM card or checks. I ordered both in mid May. Needless to say, I was very frustrated.

Today, I went to a branch, to get the ATM card straightened out, and see what was going on with the checks I ordered. If I heard “no” or “we can’t do that”, I was going to close my account, and walk across the street to First Technical Credit Union.

The teller, Ashley, did such a good job of addressing my concerns, and taking care of my needs, that before I left I grabbed the branch manager, and told him how I felt walking in, and that Ashley had singly-handedly saved my business. Ashley seemed to be a youngun, and was somewhat embarrassed when I grabbed her manager, and sang her praises in front of her. Sorry for that, Ashley.

If there is anyone who works for Washington Mutual that reads this blog, Ashley at the Overlake Financial Center in Bellevue, WA is the kind of employee that you should want to stick around in your company, and promote into a position where she can positively affect more customers’ views of the bank. If anyone else is in the financial industry, you might want to drop by and see if you can steal her away from WaMu.

Courtney can tell you how big of a deal it is that I even remember this girl’s name. I am horrible with names, so the fact that I can still remember it hours later should be an indicator of what a good job she did.