I had an interesting (if unfortunate) experience yesterday.  I called my bank because my credit card was charging me an annual fee.  I was pretty sure that I had signed up for one of those 0% interest rate promotion.  Admittedly, I remembered that I had missed a payment when I first signed up for the card and switched to automatic payments, but I clearly remembered calling the contact center and asking if this was going to be a problem.  At least, I think I did.  And I thought that they had credited me the fee and reset the interest rate to 0%.  And that's where things get interesting.

A look at a recent statement showed me that I was actually being charged the full interest rate of 14% for the last three months or so.  What the heck?!  I called up the contact center and explained my case to an agent.  He listened to my story, checked my account, but eventually told me that there was nothing he could do.  I missed a payment, the rate had gone up.  He had no record of me calling in and apologizing for the late payment and getting my rate reset (though the automatic payments were in place, which is why I had never noticed the change).  It simply never happened in his world. And that's the way it worked.

Needless to say, I was pretty upset.  After I hung up from the call, though, I had a few interesting observations.

1) I didn't deal extensively with an IVR system.  Instead, I went almost straight to an agent, after being prompted to speak the last four digits of my credit card number.  I assume there was some sort of ANI detection.  What's notable about this is that I've called that number before and dealt with a more complex IVR system.  I can only assume that I was singled out to be a "high value" customer because I have accounts with the bank's credit card, home equity line, and checking and savings accounts.  Hey, neat.

2) When I got off the call, I realize that I was mad -- but I could only be mad at myself.  The customer service agent was excellent.  He spent a long time researching my account and talking with a manager somewhere (either that, or laughing at me while I was on hold, I guess I couldn’t know for sure).  He told me that their system tracks every call that comes into the call center, and he was able to demonstrate that by naming times before and after when I supposedly called -- such as for an ATM card replacement.  It was hard to argue.  The onus was on me for not checking my statement after I supposedly got a credit and got my rate reset to 0%.  Frankly, I didn't really have anyone to complain to except myself.

Of course, the first thing I did after I hung up was grabbed one of the perpetually appearing 0% intro APR offers that hit the mail every week or so and transfer the remaining money over to that.  So in a sense, they lost my business.  But they didn't lose my respect.  And you know what?  That means something, in this day and age.

Only one thing would've made it better.  Every other channel interaction with any financial situation (Web, IM, e-mail, fax back, ATM machine, talking to a teller) involves getting some sort of receipt.  An e-mail confirmation.  A piece of paper.  Maybe a letter in the mail.  Boy, it sure would make sense to have a receipt for every call into a contact center.  Something to help my poor memory so that it's not making up stories -- or to prove that their system was down and that the agent I had talked to back a few months ago didn't do his job.  I'm thinking like an outbound SMS to the mobile phone that I was calling from.  Or an e-mail back to my address on record to show that I talked to someone.  Sure, the onus is still on me to look for that sort of receipt but -- I would sure feel better now if I knew that I'd had that, or knew that I didn't get one.  I certainly would have called back in a few days if I had not seen a response.  Without that sort of confirmation, how do you know that the trucks are on their way to your house when you report a problem with your phone line?  That the transfer you just put through in order to pay a bill has actually gone through?  I'm convinced that this sort of outbound interaction with customers is the next step in improving customer service.  After all, we're entitled to it!