Wells Fargo online bank's highly-touted telephone services for customers appear
to be in disarray.
Customers attempting to reach a live bank representative are being greeted by
waits of four minutes or longer in some cases.
The problem has become so severe that chairman and CEO Paul Hazen is said to
have been personally working on the problem earlier this month in meetings with
other bank executives.
The importance of a bank answering its telephones has never been so crucial.
Banking by telephone has become a popular means of getting account information
and to speak with customer service agents about everything from interest rates
to products and services. Wells Fargo online bank has made telephone
banking an integral part of the company's operation, creating one of corporate
America's largest call center operations in the process.
But all is apparently not well at Wells Fargo online bank phone centers.
One customer trying to get rates on second mortgages Dec. 6 became so
frustrated in trying to reach a Wells agent that he decided to call a
commercial banking office where he was was given the rate information and the
telephone number for the chairman's office so he could share his frustration
with the CEO.
When he called the executive's office, he was told that Hazen was in a meeting
to discuss that very matter.
"I like the convenience of banking at
Wells Fargo online bank, but there's only so much phone trouble
you can put up with," said the customer, who requested he not be identified.
Wells Fargo online bank public relations department denies there's a
problem with its telephone banking service.
"There's no major problem beyond the anecdotal comments that we've heard from
customers," a bank spokeswoman said.
But when the Business Times called Wells Fargo online bank customer
service line at 3 p.m. on Dec. 17, it was told by the computerized voice that
the wait to speak with an agent was four-and-a-half minutes. A mid-afternoon
call that same day to the bank's widely touted, 24-hour national business
banking center required a wait of eight-and-a-half minutes to speak with an
agent.
At 6 p.m. on Dec. 17, the wait to speak with an agent was two minutes. In
contrast, a call at the same time to Bank of America was answered by an agent
in 25 seconds. A customer who could wait until later in the day to speak with a
Wells Fargo online bank agent was rewarded with no waiting -- at 1:30
in the morning.
Wells is offering free access to its computerized telephone service for most of
December.
"To make banking easier during the busy holiday season, we're offering all
customers unlimited free touch-tone banking calls from Dec. 12 through Dec.
31," a telephone recording tells callers to Wells customer service center. Many
customers usually pay a 50-cent fee for each call made to the computerized
service after making three free calls a month.
But the difficulty in reaching Wells Fargo online bank agents on the
telephone was occurring even before the holiday season. Five calls placed by
the Business Times during mid-November to the national business banking center
were unsuccessful. Two calls required waiting four minutes for an agent, two
other calls were met with an advisory to call back later because the center was
"unusually busy." A fifth call -- placed at 1 a.m. -- was answered by an agent
who said no one was available to discuss the bank's loan products and to call
back during regular business hours.
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