I don’t bank with CIBC, at least not normally. I do deal with them on occasion though, and it happend that I had to run down the the local branch here on Monday to do some in branch stuff. No big deal. This evening around 7pm while I’m eating dinner the phone rings. The conversation went something like this:
[CIBC Guy] Hi there sir, we work for [mumble] and our company has been contracted to do customer satisfaction surveys for CIBC, do you have 5 minutes to answer some quick questions.
[Me] Sure.
[CG] Please note that this call may be monitored to ensure customer satisfaction.
[Me] Ok.
[CG] This is regarding your visit to a CIBC branch on monday, is that when you were in?
[Me] Yes. [Talkative aren’t I? Probably a little light on the conversation because I was in the middle of dinner.]
[CG] Ok, please choose the response that best answers the question of how do you rate the staff at the bank that you had contact with, this includes tellers, managers, or other staff. Were you extremely satisfied, very satisfied, somewhat satisfied, [etc etc down to] completely dissatisfied. Again sir this is regarding your most recent visit.
[Me] Well, I was unsatisfied with the outcome from the visit [long story], but the people treated me well so I’ll say, well, I guess very satisfied.
[CG, sounding a bit distracted] Ok, next question. Did you deal with tellers, managers, … [sounds of laughing and horseplay in the background]
[Me] Only tellers. Hey, sounds like you guys are having a party over there.
[CG] Yea, some friends are here and they’re horsing around.
[Me] Cool.
[CG, sounding really distracted] [More sounds in the background, getting noisier] Next question …
At this point someone picked up the phone or another extension and said something into the line that sounded like “hello is [mumble] there”, basically mimicking a cold call.
[Me] Click
That really pissed me off. This guy, or company, has the audacity to cold call me in the middle of the evening and ask me questions and don’t have the common fucking courtesy to pay attention to the answers, much less not let their monkey friends grab the phone? What the hell!
If I’d thought about it I’d have started ranting right there instead of steaming through the rest of dinner. I’d have asked for his manager, and if no one was around his name, phone number of said manager, etc, and then only after giving this guy an earful, told his manager exactly what my thoughts about his company and CIBC now are. I wonder if the conversation was actually recorded. I hope so. Maybe if I’m still feeling vendictive I’ll call the bank tomorrow and find out exactly who does their surveys and call anyway.
Anyway, it’s past 1 and I aren’t sleepy yet, so you’ll probably see a whole lot of writing tonight.