Her shrill voice breaks my vengeful reverie.

SHE: "Well, here it is," waving it about triumphantly, "but you can't have card back. It's *not* yours, you know...you'll have to get authorization from your son...a letter...to pick it up." Emphatically, she puts card in a drawer, slams it shut. Thud! Smiling now, full set of ivories, dripping insincerity.

ME: "Huh...what?" (I know, I know...I tend to repeat myself!) But, before I could go on...

SHE: "Anyway, what happened? Why did ATM take card? Did you enter something incorrectly?" I couldn't believe her accusing tone. At any moment, I expected her to start shaking her finger at me.

I look at her blankly, but I'm thinking. Now that was funny thing about this whole mess - I'd followed everything to letter...er, number: key in PIN, hit WITHDRAW CASH, select correct account...hmmm, must be SAVINGS, Danny has no CHEQUE account, but just after I key-entered 140, ATM issued above messages and ate card. That's it...kaput! I felt that I'd just been executed. Maybe it was some kind of read error on unit? Most unlikely...the card had already been accepted - PIN, account, lot! But, what then?

ME (finally shrugging, shaking my head): "Hmmm...well, no...there's no obvious reason...that I can think of..." Brow furrows, bites lip pensively.

SHE (primly): "Never mind, never MIND, either fill this form out for a new card", handing me another bank form, as if I didn't have enough already, "or get your son to bring a letter back...and then you can get card back!" She said last with more false bonhomie, teeth glittering.

As I walked away muttering, I glanced back at large sign above area: "Customer Service Desk". Some service, I thought; more like "Customer Punishment Area - SFA (that's Self Flagellation Acceptable)"! My only option now was to return with some sort of letter to satisfy these goons and their procedures...so much for *this* bank's customer relationship management program.

That woman on service desk failed miserably at CRM: cardinal rule is that customer is always right, even when s/he's wrong. She didn't *have* to tell me that using another's PIN is not recommended; from Spitzbergen to Tierra del Fuego, everybody knows *that*, already! Additionally, she didn't even have courtesy to address me by my name...

And, to cap it all, instead of apologizing to *me* for inconvenience, she made me feel as though I had been one to inconvenience *her*. Some service, huh?

Y'see, she was intent *only* on enforcing procedure, even to my detriment, instead of trying to get to root cause of problem...which, by way, may also be happening to other customers. Even as I speak...

I was thinking about *that* as I drove back home, but put it aside, while I enlisted aid of She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed. First things first, after all: get card back, then worry about why I was card-swiped! This was going to be interesting, I thought, as I knew that Sherry had already had a run-in with personnel in *that* particular branch some months ago...

Oh, joys of online banking! ;-)

P.S. Part 2 will complete this sorry saga...

Roger Burke has been involved with computers since 1967, and has managed to break quite a few, over the years. He, and his wife Sherry, are now actively engaged in online self-publishing and promoting specific affiliate programs at http://online-wealth.com . If you have any comments or questions about this article, please send emails to mailto:webmaster@online-wealth.com . Copyright 2001, Online-Wealth. All rights reserved.

I spend as much time marketing "Taming Beast" as I do developing it; most professional webmasters will tell you same. The topics of preparing sites for promotion & other marketing techniques is covered in various articles on my site.

As I mentioned, interactiviy and content is key to creating "brand" loyalty. Several years ago I was involved with Recruitment and Training in Eastern Australia. In our area, there were a number of organisations we were competing with. The other groups had "Here we are" pages, but we went a step further. We had all usual details regarding our company; but we also posted up positions vacant on a daily basis, gave employers and candidates an easy way to contact us via forms, had a number of articles and information resources for job seekers and employers in place, links to resume generators etc etc etc. The end result was an excellent traffic flow, added incentive for employers to advertise with us, more suitable candidates for positions we were advertising and we also received a substantial grant from government to further develop service. We were "little guys" in terms of physical resources - but we were biggest online presence in our area, and well known via our web site. The site also added dollar value to business itself as it became an important asset. When tendering for other services, web site became an important selling point.

In my next articles, we'll start examining various ways of conducting business online, including shopping carts, establishing merchant accounts and how credit cards are processed.

It is no longer "cool" to have an interactive web presence for your business - it is vital.

Michael Bloch  michael@tamingthebeast.net  http://www.tamingthebeast.net Tutorials, web content and tools, software and community. Web Marketing, eCommerce & Development solutions. _____________________________________________ 

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