A Customer Experience Gone Bad Because of Poor Vendor Integration

First lets clear the air... I am officially admitting that I am a credit union traitor. I use a big bank. I have been a "customer" of TD Bank for almost 10 years. TD Bank is their fourth brand identity since I became a customer of the Franklin Lamoille Bank of Vermont in 2000. Then it was "Banknorth", then "TD Banknorth", and now "TD Bank". Maybe the reason their rates are so poor is because they've spent millions of dollars on re-branding the institution two times in the past three years.

Based on my terrible experience with them today, its blatantly obvious that not only have they switched brand identities, but they have also changed some of their processing systems to become "America's most convenient bank". Its also obvious that I know more about the inconveniences that those systems can create than some of the call center operators do.

I went online today to go through the 2 minute process of ordering deposit slips for my personal checking account. That 2 minute process became a 45 minute one. I went to the online banking site, logged in, and then found the "re-order" checks link. I selected the account I wanted to order for, and was blasted with a popup window that said "ERROR" in bright red text... "NO HISTORY FOR THIS ACCOUNT". I looked up in the left corner... I saw a logo that said "Harland Clarke". I thought "oh great."

I know of Harland much too well because of experiences we've had integrating one of their systems for credit unions. I know they are traditionally poorly developed systems that probably don't have options for migrating historical data. I remembered that I used to order checks through "Deluxe" on this site. I assumed that the bank had switched to the Harland system and didn't know how to push a check order through for that account.

I then called the customer service number, and after having to speak with three people before anyone could figure out what was going on, I got a delightful woman who also was having troubles with the system. She apologized for not being able to process my order faster. She said "I wish this system was a little more user friendly", I said "It's Harland." We had a conversation about the system and she confirmed that since they switched to it they've had a massive influx of calls from people wanting to order checks online who couldn't because no historical data was moved from Deluxe to Harland. They require the first order to be placed on the phone or in a branch. This completely defeats the whole purpose of the system... "convenience".

My question to Harland is this... how can you justify the huge inconvenience that you cause banking customers and the huge expense to the financial institutions because your system is so poor that it can't migrate data from a system that it replaces?

2-17-2010: Just an update on the user un-friendly process provided by Harland:
I was successfully able to order deposit slips online for a different account. I guess that one had some "history". Here's what the shipping confirmation told me that I ordered...

Does anyone know what "PERS DEP LESS CASH 2PT-VAL PRIShip Dte" is? It says its a "financial product". I hope its my deposit slips!

Comments

Thank you very much for taking the time to comment Bob. Obviously there is a satirical nature to my post that is meant to bring to light some of the misfortunes that users experience because of the difficulties involved with systems integration. I documented my experience to bring this type of problem to light, and it happened to be a problem with a Harland system. I'm sure it won't be the last time visitors to Cloud 9 see these kind of issues discussed. I hope that other vendors have as much concern for improving the quality of the user experiences that occur as a result of interacting with their products. The more that we can all avoid allowing integration challenges to become a problem for the user, the better experiences become for all of us that interact with financial institutions on every level.

Mr. Powell,

I am a member of the Harland Clarke eCommerce team and would like to thank you for writing about your experience ordering deposit slips with Harland Clarke. I see your documentation of the experience within the site, with customer service, and with confirmation email as valuable customer input to our system and some of the processes surrounding it.

I would like to respond to the main question in your post and add a few thoughts of my own.

1. Harland Clarke does provide partnering institutions with options for migrating historical data upon a check vendor conversion. There are a few external constraints on this process that may limit the amount of data that is converted:

* How much data is stored at the previous check vendor. 18 months, 2 years, 3 years, etc.

* How many records are agreed to purchases between the check vendors and the financial institution involved. Typically on conversion there is a purchase amount per record for the number of history to be converted. This may or may not be all of the data in the previous check vendor's database.

2. I'd like to also point out that Harland Clarke offers financial institutions the ability to service orders without history if customer session originates from within online banking. The idea is that the financial institution authenticates the identity of the customer and validates that the account exists. Unfortunately, many of our partner institutions block us from providing this service based on security and fraud concerns. This is why we were not unable to service your initial web based inquiry for a reorder.

3. Your point about the email confirmation description is valid and an opportunity for us to improve the customer experience.

Thank you again for your comments.

Regards,

Bob Williams