When people are nice, you give them the business.

Last week, with Certificates of Deposit (CD) due for renewal, I called the bank to find out the new interest rate. A woman answered, dithered a bit and then said that nobody could talk to me. They’d call back.

They didn’t.

I called again the next day. Same thing. The bank is a Florida operation with 20 branches, so I tried calling another branch that is near my office, but apparently you can’t do that.

Hmmm. I called my original branch, tapping my feet, and told whoever answered that I’d be in to close the CDs the next day. He said “okay”.

So, I drove over there and, after an hour of waiting to get approvals, I left with my cashier’s checks. The employees didn’t even pretend to try to keep me as a customer.

Flash forward a day

I was talking to my right-out-of-college assistant, Rachel, about saving money and investing wisely. One thing led to another, and I called to make an appointment for her with Jack Howell at a nearby branch of Scottrade.

He was happy to meet her and spent a lot of time explaining how to trade online. He answered her questions and was so informative that I, who’ve had a Scottrade account for years, learned a few things – like how to find dividend bearing stocks on Scottrade’s website. Here’s a photo of Jack with Rachel.

Since then, I’ve told all kinds of people about how great Scottrade is, even Tweeting the company’s praises to my 17,700 followers. My cousin, Fran up in Philadelphia, just called to tell me she signed up for a Scottrade account. Maybe others did, too.

I can’t understand the bank’s cavalier approach to customer service. They weren’t always like that. My Mom and Dad banked there for years and loved it. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that a large international bank group bought them a while back and now their marketing focus has changed.

Maybe they just wanted me to leave. It’s possible. But, why? What are your thoughts?