A few months ago I had to open a new bank account with Citibank.

The experience did not go well to say the least, which was sad because I have banked with Citibank for over 10 years.

They did however follow up with me, the new customer, about a month later to see how things were going. To my surprise they did not recognize that I was already a Citibank customer and did not connect the dots between accounts (an easy thing to let slide).

My problem with the whole affair is that this “follow up” was an absolute disaster. I have written about the importance of outbound marketing before and I feel that it applies now more than ever.

A committee certainly came up with the policy put into place and definitely developed the “script” that was used. You see, someone called me from overseas to thank me for becoming a Citibank customer. This was followed by the question, “Are you satisfied with the opening of your account and your dealings with Citibank so far” to which I answered simply, “No”. The customer service rep then stated that she was happy that I chose Citibank as my banking solution and that there would be one more follow up call to “check in” on me. I then asked, “are you aware of what this account is for or that I am a current customer?” As you can imagine the response was less then helpful as the rep. simply stated that she was happy that I chose Citibank as my bank of choice and there would be another follow up call…

Now, I know what you are thinking, that this is really not so bad and a simple mistake by a poor customer service representative.

Unfortunately this is the SECOND call I have received like this and the same EXACT script happened before, which I find funny.

So in the end this leaves me with some simple advice; make sure you check the system you have in place for this type of thing. What may seem like a great idea on paper and setup by committee may in fact be executed poorly.

I look at this as a missed opportunity for Citibank, and makes my initial experience with them seem even worse.