Having recently bought my first house, I knew there was a lot of financial information to absorb, and quite a lot of terms that I needed to get used to. Things like amortization, interest, and principals were alien to me. The one thing that I felt comfortable with was the chequing account created for my mortgage at the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce (CIBC), and the convenience of being able to deposit money securely and easily…or so I thought. A few months ago, I was on my way to deposit my cheque into my mortgage account, at least 2 weeks before the money was to be withdrawn. After showing my bankcard – with my account details attached – I deposited my cheque, signed the transaction slip, and received a receipt. A very regular day at the bank, and the bank teller was polite and efficient. | |
I was put on hold for a short period of time, and a very friendly agent returned, stating her name and agent ID number. She went on to explain that they (my bank) had tried to withdraw my mortgage payment from my account on the 1st (remember it was then the 16th) of the current month and it came up insufficient funds. I was mortified, and quickly retracted, in quite a rude tone, that there was no way this could have happened, and that this must be a mistake. The only thought going through my head was remembering my financial advisor telling me that one missed payment could severely damage my credit. The agent listened patiently to my ranting and raving, and did a double check on everything in my records to see if this was a mistake. She asked me to wait while she did some digging. She returned quite quickly, and apologetically stated that the account was still coming up as insufficient funds. I didn't know what to do. As I sat there in utter shock, I could hear her busily typing away, all the while reassuring me that she would get to the bottom of this. She went back to the transaction date that I relayed to her from my receipt, and came to the conclusion that my cheque must have been deposited into the wrong account. It took all of me not to explode, and obviously sensing my anger, the agent calmly reassured me that this would not affect my credit rating, and she would make sure to help me out. The national center that she was working from could not do any transactions from where they were, and she quickly informed me of what to do. She told me to gather my receipts and any accompanying slips I had received that day and bring them into my branch as soon as possible. She also tracked down my transit and branch number for me, which I wrote down. She also said that she would call my branch and inform them of the problem, and let them know that I would be coming in. And while she explained all of this, she also took the liberty of depositing a severance amount that would cover all service charges, NSF charges and other bank fees that had occurred that month. She also deposited an undisclosed amount for my troubles that would go towards my next mortgage payment. She made a horrifying situation extremely positive, and went above and beyond what I needed her to do. Not only was she calm and sympathetic, but she also went ahead with solving the problem before I even asked. Regardless of the incompetencies at my local branch, I left the situation very confident that if any other problems did occur in the future, I was in good hands with the CIBC customer service center! Do you have a customer service story that you'd like to tell? We want to hear it - good or bad! Send all contributions (in WORD format) to Content@ContactCenterWorld.com and we'll publish them in our Heroes & Villains section! |
Published: Tuesday, July 8, 2003
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