Wachovia Business: Customer Service Apathy and Online Account Fail
6 Hour
52 Minute
AM
Venting here. You should stop reading now as it won't improve my condition, your condition or the quality of Wachovia's business service. It's just a rant... not filled with any sort of cogent argument.
After I vent I'll put my money where my social media mouth is and Twitter @reply to @wachovia with a link to this post to see if their social media support posse is any better at resolving issues. Come on social media peeps... as a social media consultant/pundit/builder/advocate I'm rooting for you! If you pull off a win I'll be able to use @wachovia as an example of the social media support group whupping up on the traditional processes. Currently I use @Umatter2Charter... surely @wachovia can do better?!? Just think of all the other social media people who you'll help me justify budgets for! Create jobs for geeks! Rah, rah, rah! Jay and James, this means you.
I'm an 18+ year Wachovia customer. Went in to set up two business accounts with them in Nov of last year. Signed all the paperwork for an online account. Was sent an email with a link to enroll/activate. Went through the process and it bombed at the end. Called customer support, they told me to wait 24 hours and they'd resend the activation email. Did this a few times.
Then the calls from the branch person started. Why hadn't I activated my online account? Did I know that I should activate my account? Did I have an internet browser? I got these calls every day over the course of a couple weeks. Each time the same thing... we'll fix it, please try again. Account never worked, I told them. But it has to work, they said. I called online support. I called business support. On and off over the last few months I've tried to get it going. No dice.
Fast forward to yesterday. I need that online account to get PayPal to accept funds to run dNeero stuff. I spent an hour on the phone with them yet again. Was told I should go to a branch and that I needed to start the whole process over again.
What a pain in the ass.
Went to the branch. Spent over an hour with an agent in person talking to an agent on the phone (well, mostly on hold) in their online group to learn that they had the form they needed on file... they just weren't looking in the right place. They filed it under my SSN, not the company's EIN. This was the local agent telling the online support folks. But, alas, I needed to start the process again. So we wait for them to fax a form to the branch. I fill it out. The branch says they fax it back. I stick around to get the fax confirmation. Ask if we can again call online support to finish the loop. Nope, I need to go back to work and wait for them to call.
About an hour later, back at the office, I learn that the fax never went through. Well, it went somewhere, I have a fax confirmation report. So I get to head to another branch. And I get to wait. And I get to explain my issue yet again. So they fax the document in.
And I stay there until I can confirm that it's in the hands of the business support team. They have it, they say I'll be good to go. But I can't log in... error AE-A07. Great.
So they pawn me off onto online support. Who says a ticket's been opened and that it'll be fixed in a couple hours.
I call back, now at 9pm... this thing having been going all day. It's working, they say! Fail. Still not working.
I call back this morning and am told that they can't work on it because it's a business account. You know, I don't really give a crap. This is their issue. I tell them that I don't care and that they need to take ownership of the issue, write on an f'ing sticky note or whatever they need to do to remind themselves to call the business support group when they get to work. Nope, they won't do it. It's not their issue.
So now I've been bounced between three branch trips, the online support group and then business support group. Wonderful.
Massive apathy. Massive lack of ownership of my issue. They pipe some marketing crap over the speakers at their branches... "business services that give you more time in your day" or something like this. Fail. They've done nothing but eat my time over the last six months. They haven't done anything but the bare minimum.
If you're considering investing because of the whole Wells Fargo + Wachovia merger... reconsider. I haven't looked but I assume they're telling investors that the integration is going well. It's not. I've heard from at least three people at branches that they're making it very difficult to transact business. Where the rubber meets the road... that's where your dividends and value-boosting quarterly reports really happen.
I don't have time for this. Do I feel better after this vent? Not really. Because I know that I'll be on the phone with Wachovia most of the day trying to get them to figure this out. I should be able to say "fix it" and have them, you know, fix it.
Update 9:17am: Already 20 mins on phone w/ online support. Each time i call i have to go through the same "please try to log in", "we'll send you an email", "clear your cookies" process. Takes 15 minutes just to get to the point that they admit it's their problem. Apparently no tracking of my call history... annoying. Still getting error folks.
Update 10:06am: Venting successful. Issue resolved by phone online support after about a half hour on hold.
Update 10:47am: The social media team did reply: " @joereger I apologize for the delay but am glad ur issue was resolved. Will share ur fdbk w/ the right group. Tks 4 being a customer. ^JR "
Feb 2010 Atlanta Snow Day Two