Twenty-four million account holders of the Royal Bank of Scotland, NatWest and Ulster Bank (RBS) who tried to complete everyday transactions like paying for groceries at the check-out got a nasty surprise in the UK this week.
Their credit and debit cards were rejected as a result of a technology glitch.
You might do everything right in the wake of a PR crisis, but negativity still sticks.
The error is understood to have occurred after a software update froze part of the banks’ computer systems and although this had been fixed, it created a backlog of more than 100 million transactions that were not paid in or out of bank accounts as they should have been.
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Predicatably, customers went to Twitter to vent their frustration with the outage.
RBS responded with a damage limitation exercise via its Twitter handle @RBS_Help over the next 48 hours:
“We’re aware of some technical issues and are working hard to fix them. Sorry and thanks for your patience.”
“We are very sorry for the issues that have affected customers tonight.”
“Our customers are reporting that services are coming back on line. We will confirm when all systems have returned to normal service.”
“If customers are left out of pocket as a result of these problems, we will put this right.”
“If any customer is unable to resolve an issue they should contact us by phone or in branch in the morning where we will be ready to help.”
“The systems issues that affected our customers last night have now been resolved and all of our services are now back working normally.”
“We would like to apologise to our customers. if anyone has been left out of pocket as a result of these problems, we will put this right.”
“Any customers experiencing issues this morning should get in touch with our call centres or branches where our staff will be ready to help.”
“Customers can contact us free phone on 0800 151 0405 or 03457 242 242.”
Unfortunately, the glitch came 18 months after another episode where millions of RBS customers were unable to access their accounts, again following a software update. Customers were compensated and then-CEO Stephen Hester waived his annual bonus to demonstrate his sincere regret.
RBS acted in a highly responsible and professional way when it discovered the problem and its impact.
However, the perception that RBS is “accident prone” won’t evaporate as fast as the steps the bank rightly took to resolve the issue.
“Perception is the act of recognition or comprehension by the observer,” observes David Pearson, who’s been at the helm of mega-brands like Sony, Proctor & Gamble, Mars and Pillsbury. “It may come through the senses or the mind. It may not be correct but it is what matters. How a customer perceives a product or service they are being invited to buy is all important. The good marketer understands that it’s not the message but what’s received that counts.”
By making its customer service more robust, and such incidents less likely to occur in future, RBS will ride out the current storm and regain trust.
From a public relations perspective, how might RBS repair the damage faster? Let us know your thoughts!
For more from Ardi Kolah, click here.
Image: Andreas (Creative Commons)
