I have a business account at Wells Fargo, and I absolutely dread having to go in to the branch to do business. Why? The tellers are so…friendly.
Every time I go in, they don’t just ask me how my day is, they ask frankly personal questions. They want to know what I’m doing this weekend, they want to know what I’m doing later today, they want to know what my plans are for my birthday.
Now, even as I type this, it sounds so innocuous, like they’re just making every day pleasantries, but that’s not the way it feels. They don’t let it go. If I wave it off with a general “planning to have some fun” or “spending time with my family”, they keep digging: “oh, really, like what?”
Maybe it’s because it’s a bank, but it feels invasive to me. I’ve even tried gentle deflections like “I’d rather not say,” and they just come in from another angle.
Now, I know I could say “I’d rather not answer person questions, can we stick to business,” and I should. But I’m just wondering: am I alone in this? Or does anyone else who banks with ells Fargo feel the same way?
It’s the same thing at both the Wallingford and University District branches, so I’m assuming it’s part of their training.
The tellers at Chase are friendly, but they don’t ask increasingly intrusive personal questions. They are friendly and professional. If you are dissatisfied with the approach that Wells Fargo employees are taking, you might try talking with management. If that’s not an option, move your money. That speaks volumes, especially if this move is accompanied with a letter of explanation. I personally wouldn’t appreciate being cross-examined every time I make an in-person banking transaction. I’d find it creepy, too.
I imagine someone at corporate decided that deeper relationships between the tellers and the customers would make people feel more loyal to the bank. Seems really intrusive to me.
It’s totally fine to say “I’m in a rush, could we just complete my transaction?” and/or move to a more professional bank.
Just to throw in another perspective, I’ve noticed a less intrusive level of the same thing; however, I don’t mind — it seems to be more a conversation starter to me.
I can imagine that it would bother others; but wanted to mention that from at least one person’s viewpoint, it’s OK.
I bank at Verity on 45th and Stone and they are always friendly, but in a super comfortable way. That sounds like a pretty uncomfortable situation, Wallyhood. Sorry.
Hope they have good video coverage. I’m guessing they get together after closing and try to top each other with the most awkward, inappropriate interaction of the day, but it’s kind of wasted without close cameras on both the ernest, insistently friendly clerk and on the baffled and uncomfortable customer.
I recommend that you optionally knock back a brew or two before bank visits if that helps get you in the mood, and then interpret any excessive overtures as a come-on – regardless of the teller’s appearance or gender – and respond in an appropriately positive way. That may be what’s going on after all, you know.
So much for the rumored “Seattle freeze”. I agree it is socially inept behavior. I would think that giving short curt answers and appearing bemused they would eventually get the hint. Such as what are my plans today? Nothing, and leave it at that.
that’s a pet peeve on mine. forced awkward conversations with service people. i really don’t want to talk to you. i’d assume my brutish off putting demeanor says as much but it’s likely a corporate edict. i feel bad for the employees who are likely just as uncomfortable.
I’m a midwestern girl and this is totally normal behavior for me, lol.. I’ll have to visit Chase more often to get my fill when I miss Ohio. I can see why it might feel intrusive to Seattlites, but on the other hand, stilted conversations might feel rude to the tellers.
Yes, Chase employees do the “Midwest Nice” thing – even if they are from New York or India. They are really nice people and they treat you well. However, Chase as a corporation gives its customers extremely low interest rates on their deposits, if any. I’m headed to BECU. I don’t know how the employees are trained there, but I know the interest rates however minimal, are better there than at Chase.
I can’t believe someone is writing about a clerk trying to be friendly. Next there will be a comment about how that person smiled too much. I suggest using the cash machine, stay at home and don’t be part of a caring community.
“My bank teller is too friendly” is such a Wallingford complaint hahaa. I do however completely agree about it feeling uncomfortable. I work in a hotel where corporate procedures “force” us to make a genuine personal connection with every guest. Being at the other end of that interaction often, only those who exhibit very anti social body language can escape this forced “genuine” interaction. OR just spell it out it East Coast style like you said, “No offense but I just want to talk business here”.
I had a very bad experience at Wells Fargo (quite aside from being in the bank when it was robbed) long before they became “friendly.” Switched to a credit union and still feel relieved every time I walk by the Wallingford Wells Fargo and remember I’ll never have to go in there again.
Enterprise Rent-a-Car is the same way, at pretty much every Seattle branch I’ve been to. Overly friendly young folks, men in suits and women in dresses. That is not Seattle and it is not genuine. I rarely rent cars from them anymore, and that is part of the reason.
Complaining about a bank’s *friendliness* just seems petty. I don’t think they’re invasive at all. If you don’t feel like answering questions, why don’t you ask THEM questions? Ask them about what THEY’RE doing with their weekend. They’re people too. I bank with WF and I rarely have to be inside their doors more than two minutes. If they’re a friendly two minutes of my day, the last thing I’m going to do is COMPLAIN. There are so many unfriendly, discourteous businesses around here, I’m certainly not going to take friendliness for granted. Be a grown up.
Well, just judging from the tone of your post here, I can guess how nice it would be for you – someone paid to be friendly.
Oooh. You got me!
There is a difference between friendly and nosy. The original poster said if he was evasive the bank staff would press for information. Sounds like a corporate decision to make relationships or to get information.. yet a bank is about banking- money saving, loans, checks.. etc not what one is doing for a weekend.. unless it becomes a means to store personal and family info and preferences in order to ‘generate’ ideas to sell them something.
It is also true at Chase and Tully’s. I think they are told to “get to know your customer” but I also feel like it’s annoying and invasive
It’s just as bad across the street at Key. I want to do my banking (I’m forced to go in for my employer) but theres one manager who practically volunteers to give me a rim job every time I walk in the door in an overly-flirty manner. I’d choose professional over “friendly” any day. Luckily, at my credit union I get both.
Rim jobs only come when you open a Roth IRA.
You are not alone. Near U District is a Fed Ex Office. About three years ago I noticed each time I entered someone said “Hello.” It was obvious to me a PR firm had told the company to force the employees to say “Hello.” If you go to the Wallingford Post Office you will be asked if you need more stamps. That is because the employees are ordered to ask that. The questions you are asked are forced on the employees. It is not their curiousity and not their fault.
Reminds me of the movie In the Line of Fire where Clint Eastwood is trying to save the President from assassination. John Malkovich goes to the bank and the overly-friendly, overly-invasive teller susses out he’s not who he says he is. Then he follows her home and kills her.
What’s really funny is that this overly friendly nature seems to be an order from Wells Fargo headquarters. No, seriously. If you walk into ANY Wells Fargo branch — from California to Minnesota to Connecticut — you will find the exact same behavior. I can personally testify to this. Also, search “Wells Fargo overly friendly” into Google and you will find so many people, especially on Yelp, complaining about this from around the country! =)
They ask similar questions at Key (“any plans this weekend?”), but I never get more questions after a vague answer. Asking one question is business-pseudo-friendly (a bit forced, but harmless); pressing for more details when the customer is obviously not chatty is bad training, and if that’s really the pattern it’s worth mentioning to managers.
By the way, I don’t know what they’re called at Wells Fargo, but at Key the tellers are “customer relationship managers” or some such title that sounds more like a marriage counselor. I’m sure they’re trained to engage in “friendly” chat.
I agree with you 100%!! Every member of my family has had this experience multiple times at WF. It is beyond friendly — I love friendly — this is intrusive. They actually told me my planned activities (errands), “Like what?” they asked, were too boring when I mentioned things like, going to the bank and PO. When my daughter told them she was going to see a movie, but hadn’t decided which one (in response to their questions), they asked her what movies she was considering seeing. They asked her what she was saving for when she made a deposit. They asked me where I was considering going to eat when I said I was having dinner with friends (after a few other questions). My husband and son have had the same experience — the tellers always want specific details and don’t stop after just a general response. I appreciate friendly tellers (and prefer it over the alternative) but this is going a bit too far. It is now a joke in my family – we always have some story to share about being interrogated by the WF tellers. I think their training needs to be tweaked!
Yelp review. Straight forward, “It really is nto your business. I came here to deposit my xxx.”
You could try deflecting with “I don’t know, what are you doing? Got any ideas for me?” I wonder if that would throw them off guard. If they persist, you could really give them a taste of their own medicine with “Are you married? Have a partner? Any kids? How old?” etc. But I guess that’s maybe just passive-aggressive (tee-hee, no I wouldn’t actually do that).
I, too, have had this experience at WF, and it bugs the crap out of me. I do appreciate when they’re nice and courteous. But whether I’m at the bank or the market, I really am not there for idle chit chat. I just want to get it done, and get the hell out of there.
Maybe one of these day’s I’ll respond to “what are your plans this weekend” with “Well, first I’m gonna smoke some meth. Then I’m gonna go down to Pioneer Square tonight and run around naked wearing a clown mask. How about you?” If they don’t get the hint after a response like that, they never will.
You know they aren’t genuinely interested in your plans, and they know you don’t like it. They’re just following orders from headquarters. Like Calmar, I suspect the influence of a PR firm. Instead of an authentic corporate culture, WF decided to buy one in a package and try it on to in the branches see if it fools anyone.
I’ve had the same experience and I always find it off-putting. I have accounts at Chase and WF, and the folks at Chase are always very friendly, they may even ask questions like, “Have any plans this weekend?”, but it’s clearly just pleasant small talk, the same you have with anyone. The WF friendliness is over the top and definitely feels forced.
I bank at the Wells Fargo on 45th, too, and I am so glad to see this post. I thought there was something wrong with me for feeling slightly disconcerted about the over-friendliness. It doesn’t feel friendly so much as formulaic questioning/interrogation. It was like being at dinner with my mother-in-law.
Seeing how many people feel this way, I’m sure it must be part of their training. I wish someone who works there could chime in. It would be interesting to hear their perspective.
Alright guys time for you to hear an employee’s perspective. I’m a teller at Wells Fargo and I absolutely hate the personal questions just as much as you guys do. There are two main reasons we ask so many personal questions:
1. To build “rapport” with the customer in order to sell them products, i.e. credit cards, checking accounts, minor savings accounts, lines of credit, loans, insurance, bill pay, and the list goes on and on. We try to get the customers comfortable and then go in for the kill by closing the sale with a banker. Why do you think the tellers are always trying to sit you down with a banker or have them follow-up with you? It’s all about sales for Wells Fargo. As an employee I feel ashamed trying to trick customers everyday into opening accounts or getting credit cards they don’t need simply for the sale. We also have daily goals as tellers. We must get four sales/”solutions” a day and when you add in pressure by management to meet our goals each day this results in awkward and uncomfortable conversations with the tellers.
2. The second reason: bonuses. Each quarter the tellers, bankers, service manager, bank manager, district manager, area president, hell even the CEO John Stumpf get bonuses for having at least 80% “wow”. What do I mean by “wow”? Wow is essentially our customer service rating. Each day customers who stop by at the bank will get a phone call from Gallup, a third party service, who surveys the customer’s experience at the bank. They ask the customer to rate the service provided by the teller and bank in general on a scale from 1-5 with 5 being a perfect score. Questions include, “Did they make your business the top priority?”, “Did they do things right the first time?”, “Did they ask you questions?” or something along those lines. Each morning we receive the results of customers who completed the surveys and if we get 5’s across the board then that counts as a good survey and adds to our quarterly percentage. If we get anything less than a 5 then that counts as a bad survey and reduces our “wow” percentage. For instance, if at the end of the quarter we received 12 good surveys and 3 bad surveys then we would end the quarter at 80% “wow” which would makes us eligible for our quarterly bonus. Tellers, bankers, and lower level management receive a $500-$900 bonus, don’t quote me on this, and upper level management get substantially more.
Another factor that contributes towards these intrusive personal questions is the fact that we actually practice doing this EVERY DAY. I’m not lying. Each morning before we open, we role play conversations we’ll have throughout the day. Everybody gets in on it. The bankers pretend they’re the customers and the tellers have to act out what they’re conversations are going to sound like for the day. We’re trained to ask open-ended questions to keep the conversation rolling because the better the conversation the more likely we’ll get a sale. Want to know something else? We even have weekly meetings early in the morning (7am) at the University District branch where tellers and managers from all of the Wells Fargos in the district meet up to role play for a whole hour. We also have a worksheet that must be filled out each morning called ISHINE which maps out the specific steps we should hit with each customer interaction. The steps include, introducing ourselves, shaking hands, using the customer’s name at least 3 times, eye contact, build rapport (ask annoying personal questions), etc…
At the end of the day Wells Fargo is a corporation and just like any other corporation they are required by law to do what’s best for their shareholders. And doing what’s best for their shareholders sometimes comes at the expense of their own customers. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not advocating the alternative which would be providing bad, unprofessional service for our customers. I do believe that basic manners such as looking people in they eye, smiling, acknowledging them as they walk in, and friendly small talk should be part of the customer experience. But asking 21 questions, many that are way too personal such as detailed explanations of their weekend plans, is a bit excessive. It’s uncomfortable for me as the teller and for the customer as well. I’m not the only employee who feels this way, but when you want to keep your job you just have to play along and do things the Wells Fargo way.
Finally, if I were the customer I would just be blunt and simply say that you just came for the deposit and don’t have time for a deep conversation. Often the tellers won’t bother you with 100 questions after that. Hope my perspective was helpful.
Thank you for your insider view of Wells Fargo. I will not be banking there. Banks do not have a ‘legal’ mission to do what is best for their shareholders. That’s just something they say for PR. Otherwise the banking miasma of 2008 would not have occurred. You are absolutely on point when you say that the bank is about selling product.
Thank you! Well written, preposterous to the point of surreal but I believe it. I can’t imagine that anyone after reading this could walk into your bank and not feel at least a little compassion for the tellers who have to live with a job like this. Just a minor point about corporate legal obligations to shareholders — I put this to a lawyer who works at a large local corporation, and she convinced me that a corporation has reasonable legal latitude, within which they can decide what’s best for the short and long term, along with ethical considerations etc. That doesn’t mean that in practice they don’t sacrifice everything else for the sake of short term gains, it just means that they can’t point at any legal obligation that compelled them to do so, if she’s right. Of course, whether creeping out your customers does anything for your short term profits is a separate question.
This just highlights why you should run screaming from corporate banking (WF, Key, BofA, Chase) and make your way to the nearest credit union! Stat!
The reason they ask you about your plans is to 1) establish rapport and
2) to uncover needs about what they can sell you. Example: Going to my
nephews 1st birthday. Oh wow did you ever think about setting up a
savings account for him?
Every smallest detail about what happens
when you enter or call wells fargo is designed to sell you something.
and if you don’t need anything? How about a second checking account to
separate your money or a second savings account for holiday funds?
I
work in one of the calls centers and it is the most unprofessional
place I have ever seen. Here is a tip to all the WF customers out
there. When you call in for customer service and they innocently ask
you if they could suggest any products and services that might benefit
you….JUST SAY NO. Then they can not even try to give you the never
ending sales pitch and endless transfers.
I have had the same annoying experience at every branch I have used on the Eastside. I have said I am really in a hurry- I do not want to discuss it- and they are relentless. I have recently read some racist policies that Wells Fargo has continued to practiced- that were ceased by other lenders in the 60’s that are even more disturbing- lending to lower and middle class whites; while refusing loans to upper middle class blacks, and blacks earning in the higher income brackets, and continuing to do redline loans to segregate neighborhoods.
I just ran into this at Chase today. First tho there are 3 tellers, I am asked to wait because thye are making a change. Then the young woman gives me a bored look, lmini-eyeroll,”with you in just a minute”. Then when I get to the counter she begins with how are you? how is your day? are you out doing errands? I just looked at her.. the change from the bored eyeroll getting to the intrusive questions was bizarre. I said,” I know you are trained to ask these questions but I am not interested in answering questions. May I have the check cashed please?
I agree completely. Now I just tell them I’m having a pap smear. This has got to stop. I tweeted a complaint.
Yes it’s totally annoying and keeps people in line longer because they strike up a f’n 5 min conversation with everyone. Anothert idiotic fake corporate attempt to show that they care!!!
“What are you doing this weekend?”
“Same as usual. Get drunk and masturbate.”
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Hilarious. The downtown Wells Fargo does that too. The girl there even had the audacity to ask me where the cash I was depositing was coming from. Uh yeah, NO. Do your job, which is to deposit my money and let me get on with my day.
I’m not crazy about these questions (“How’s your day going?” “How was your weekend?”) from bank tellers, either. But I don’t believe for a moment that they invented this so as to appear “friendly.” Rather, it’s been handed to them as being a condition and requirement of the job.
It doesn’t bug me that much, but if it did, I’d be calling up Wells Fargo management, not taking it out on the teller trying to get through his/her work day.
But come to think of it, you have an even bigger reason to be mad at Wells Fargo right now…
Try going into Chase!! i went in to get $$ for an international trip.. made mistake of saying so and was told that there is a way to avoid fees for cash withdrawals . go talk to a banker. 10 minutes later he still did not articulate to me exactly how that could be done. Annoyed with this uncomfortable guiding I went to another Chase for a different need and was told I would need to complete a complete account updating and review which would include ?? s regarding my income, employers, investments etc etc… a new procedure for all account holders due to problems they were having with money laundering!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
According to the headlines this past week, looks like this was so they could open up fake accounts in your name. Good times.
It’s not just you. I dread going inside and having to put up with the chit chat. They don’t know me, I don’t know them; let’s keep it at that. Only the little old ladies who don’t get to talk to anyone much would complain if the tellers are professional and stick to the job at hand. I hate the drive thru, but sometimes I just want to make a deposit and go.