I'm in the process of buying a car. Being a good boy, I went through the process at my bank first to ensure I had the financing. I had already done the research and settled on the car I wanted. As my bank is closed on the weekend, and I bought the car on Saturday, today was the first day I could contact the bank and set up the loan closing appointment with them.
I had been speaking with a pleasant woman named Martha whose uncertainty about certain things made me think she was a little new to the process. However, this is not a problem with me as I'm generally a pretty amiable fellow and I am rarely in a rush. I've spoken with Martha three seperate times concerning the issue and she has been helpful each time.
Today I set up a meeting with her for 1 pm (my lunch hour) at which time I would present her with the paperwork, she would go over them, and type up the final papers from the bank for my signature. About 20 minutes later I get a rather abrupt phone call back from one Abigail (who I learn later is the assistant branch manager).
Abigail is telling me a very different story. She says I cannot come in without first faxing the paperwork to the office for them to go over and do some preliminary work on. When I explain that I do not have access to a fax, she asks me if I can go somewhere that does. I politely explain that I am at work, and I will be going to their office during my lunch hour, so, no, I cannot go somewhere and get them faxed early. Abigail continues to be a "negative nancy" about every comment I make. I offer solutions, like stopping by today to turn in the paperwork and waiting while they do the paperwork. No, you can't do that! It'll take us 2 hours to do this! How about I drop off the paperwork today and schedule an appointment for tomorrow? No! We need it now! Everything was no, no, no. She refuses to work with me on a solution.
I then politely ask if there is someone else at the bank with whom I can discuss this issue. She hesitates, then says that the bank manager is there. I again very politely ask to speak with him.
Adam comes on the phone a little while later. I explain that I have had three very nice conversations with Martha and she has explained what I need to do, that it may be a wait if I go in today for everything, and that I do not have ready access to a fax machine. I then further explain that from the moment Abigail called me, she was impeding this process and was a hinderance to me completing this transaction by blocking every attempt at a solution I provided.
Adam explained that Martha was new, that she was still training on this process, and that she may have miss-spoken the time needed and needs of the bank during our conversations. He then apologized to me for Abigail's poor customer service and answered a further question from me by explaining that she is actually one of the assistant managers of the branch. I then offer to him the same solutions I gave to Abigail and he not only says that any one of those is perfectly acceptable, but also goes on to suggest two other alternatives that I may use in order to finalize this process.
I thank him for his time, explain that I will be in at 1 pm to see either him or Martha, and that I did not want to have further dealings with Abigail on this matter due to what I felt was poor customer service. He apologized again and said that he would make sure that Martha was available to me at 1 pm this afternoon and that we could then make a new appointment to finalize the paperwork once she had everything she needed.
Now, why couldn't Abigail be as helpful and understanding as either Martha (the person in training who doesn't have the experience that she has) or Adam (who you would think would only promote someone who was customer-service oriented to be an assistant manager)?
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