Talking point: A former bank marketer picked up the telephone and sampled how well local banks serviced her when she called as an ordinary customer. The revealing answer: not as well as many institutions claim.

• Author: Lima, Kathryn L.
• Position: Feature

Recently I went shopping by telephone for a reasonably liquid place to invest a significant (to me) amount of money. I hoped to earn a return higher than the 1.5 percent I was making on a money-market account. The experience taught me a lesson in why banks and other financial service companies should pay more attention to the details of good telephone customer service--details that, once handled, make it easy for a client, or a prospective client, to do business with them.

To begin, I am not an uninformed consumer when it comes to financial services. I spent several years in the early 1980s as a bank marketing director (trying to convince bankers that they could be salespeople). As executive director of a foundation, I worked closely with bankers and financial advisers. At my last place of employment, I was a member of the senior management team, and I ran a successful consulting and training business.

I used the telephone instead of the Internet for my search because it is frequently faster to speak to someone than to search Web pages. I was anxious to obtain information, make a decision and act. I also limited my search to my local financial institutions. I called five banks that I knew--looking up phone numbers in the white pages--and my stockbroker.

As a trainer in sales and customer service, I was as curious about how well banks handle inquiries from customers as I was about the financial products themselves. So I resisted the temptation to call bank people whom I already knew. Instead, I treated my search as a research project and called as if I were new to the area and has no personal contacts.

Here is a summary of what happened.

BANK NUMBER 1

My first call was to the institution I consider "my" bank.

Although all that I have there is my checking account, it is "home." This bank is a regional, publicly traded institution with offices in five or six states.

I dialed the closest branch. I told the woman who answered that I was seeking information on CD rates for terms of 90 days, six months and one year. Although she put me on hold while she searched her computer, she checked in periodically to keep me updated on her progress. The on-hold music was too loud, and I was relieved when she came back on the line.

Once she had found the right location in her computer, she was able to furnish me with the information I needed. Instead of the traditional fixed terms, this bank offered CD terms in ranges--32-91 days, seven-to-nine months--as...