Banks and towns: Small are Beautiful #2

A friend of mine asked me to pick up his check and deposit it for him in a local bank. I don't have my accounts there, never been in their building before, never read about them in the news.

And so I did. I picked up his checks, drove over to the bank and walked in. This was on the day last week when Congress and Wall Street were having fainting spells (ok, I was worried that afternoon, too.) about the need for a bailout bill to save their respective sit-bones.

The people in this bank were the friendliest I'd ever met in a retail operation. Everyone spoke, said hi, asked how I was, smiled and made eye contact. 

Then the teller said that on Wednesday's they round up each deposit to the next dollar.

Huh? Now, I gotta tell you, I didn't hear, really hear, what she said. So, I absentmindedly said 'oh, ok'.

And then she said and that's why your deposit amount will be bigger.

Well, that phrase got my attention. And I asked her what she said. And she repeated herself. Every Wednesday, we round up deposits to the next dollar.

In my friend's case that was ...$.87. Eighty-seven cents.

I thought about it and asked her why do you do that?

She smiled and said...No reason, really. We just do.  And everyone around her smiled , too. 

So did I.

I was starting to feel pretty good by now. Smiling people. My friend gets an extra  eighty-seven cents...This whole experience has gone on for 10-15 minutes, now.

Being the clever person I am, I asked her..."you don't round down the deposits on Thursday, do you". They thought that was pretty funny, at least they convinced me they did.  Regardless, someone laughed at my joke and now I'm just bubbling.

And for $.87 and a few smiles...they've got my business.

Sometimes, it's really that simple: Creating customer evangelists AND managing a bank successfully in today's credit environment.

Comments

[Shawn K]

Now why can't my bank do that?