Verification Validation Accreditation (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
As a State Farm Bank customer (with business and personal banking and insurance accounts) for more than 10 years, one would expect to have been verified and qualified a gazillion times.
A few days ago, I called to check if a deposit had cleared. Unfortunately the voice print system didn’t recognize my voice after three tries AND answering all the verification questions correctly.
A live agent who I swear was a robot with zero personality, proceeded to ask me 15 questions…here are several:
1. In what district is your current property located? (I pay my own property taxes, so I knew, fortunately.)
2. What month and year did you buy your current property?
3. Who did you sell the Chicago property to (this was 11 years ago), and he listed 3 names.
4. When did you vacate the property on Neva Street? (Don’t know, never lived there.)
5. When did your last check clear the bank?
6. What was your last deposit?
When he got to the last two questions (with many others included), I began to get extremely frustrated. After hearing the last two questions, I knew the robot was doing his job, and I told him I was also getting frustrated, and said, “How would I know when a check clears the bank…I don’t have access to that bank information!” I also said I was calling to check whether the last deposit cleared the bank, so how would I know what my last deposit was?
Then Mr. Robot said I had to go to a State Farm office and get verified in person. That’s when I was done and asked for a supervisor.
I waited and waited; the dude returned and said, “Ma’am, I will call you back at the number listed on your account, and if you answer then you are verified.”
Guess what? I answered.
When he verified me and the business was done, I told him to report back upstairs that those questions were absolutely ridiculous and no one could possibly answer them.
Hey, State Farm Bank? Time to rethink your customer verification process; it really does suck. If you want to keep loyal customers from jumping ship, then you had better consider the consequence of 50 questions.
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