I’m depressed.

Given the recession, I was hoping to see banks actively reaching out with great marketing to compete for customers.

Instead, I have two banks today as my prime examples of “hostile marketing” – that is, examples of marketers so intent on a process that they’ve failed to consider what the process feels like from a customer perspective.

Example #1 is Everbank, aka “Neverbank” after this experience.

Lured by their advertising, I attempted to open an internet CD.  I have opened internet CDs before, and most banks simply have you fill out an online form and wire money. Takes about 10 minutes.

Neverbank asks for the full online application… which they then print and physically mail you. You sign it, and it goes back to them, where they “approve” it, and open your account. Unless, like me, you’ve forbidden institutions to do random credit checks on your social security number (anti-fraud measure), at which point Neverbank won’t open an account for you.

Really.

Even though you’re giving them money (and so should be more concerned about their financial state than them about yours), they demand a credit check, because their marketing department (under cover of the DHS ‘know your customer’ directive) has demanded the status for cross-marketing purposes. Wow. Hostile marketing: the added information-gathering steps look good on paper to greedy cross-marketers, but they actually drive away customers.

Example #2, similarly, is Washington Mutual, or as they are now known, WaMu.

WaMu, aka “WTF”, I suspect has larger issues, based on the fact that this is the same bank chain where I once had my lapels shaken by an angry bank manager, for my temerity in attempting to cash a personal check (given to me by a colleague, drawn on their WaMu account) while I was not a customer of the bank…

…but the specific point in question occurred the other day, when I was again attempting to cash a check.

This check was a bank check. It was drawn on WaMu. But after furnishing my drivers license, passport, and signing the check, the teller asked me to ink my fingerprints on to the check.

“Standard Policy” for non-customers.

Now, I could attempt to rationalize this as a security measure, except for the fact that this was a WaMu check – and bank customers don’t have to provide fingerprints.

In fact, as we demonstrated in the next 15 minutes, it’s possible to instantly open a bank account using the two forms of ID I’d just presented to cash the check – then cash the check without fingerprints (as a customer) – and then close the bank account. All of which leads me to believe that the whole “customer / non-customer” difference in treatment is purely a marketing ploy to increase customer signups, vs any real security issue.

Again: looks good on paper (hey, lets create some incentives to get people to sign up), but manifests as poorly executed hostile marketing – “hey, let’s artificially penalize non-customers, so their experience of our bank is poor… that’ll really make ‘em want to sign up!”.

Moral of the story?  Put down your grand ambitions as a marketer – and try the experience as a customer.

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