It is May 20th. 2021 and today for the third time this year got a call from my mortgage company. I am behind on my payments they alleged saying that the May payment was over due. The last payment on their record was on April 30th according to them, and they applied it to April’s dues.

The statement was totally baseless. Our payments are set up through the bank and are made on the 1st. of the month, or earlier – if it is a holiday. May 1st. happened to be a Saturday.

No amount of explaining was registering with the inept customer service representative – exasperated I told him to pull out all the statements from the day the loan was originated to date and see for himself. He was unwilling to do that – saying it was not his job. This was repeat behavior from two such previous incidents. I had to just hang up the phone…

Next step – I called my mortgage broker and shared with him this story, asking him to connect me with the complaint department. He said there wasn’t any complaint department at the firm, neither was there a way for me to file a complaint online. So we agreed to move the loan to another company; you will save money as well since the rates have come down again – he added. Had we known about this type of lousy treatment of customers earlier – he would not have selected them in the first place. I will just not do business with this mortgage company any more he said.

They lost not just me as a customer, but all future potential business my mortgage broker (and people in his network) would have brought to them.

5 Antidotes to Learn from this incident

1 – Before alleging that a customer has done wrong, or is in error, check extensively to verify that there is no internal error that could lead to this conclusion.

2 – Start with a statement acknowledging the length of the time the customer has been with you, and thank them for their loyalty. Then politely present the facts and ask whether the discrepancy is accurate?

3 – If the customer repeatedly states that there is no fault at their end, thank them for their time and let them know you will investigate internally and get back with them.

4 – Get to the root of the matter and determine if there is indeed an error on the part of the customer, then do a dialog presenting them your findings and ask if they match their reality? Or is there a disconnect somewhere. Do not allege wrong doing or accuse them.

5 – If there is wrong doing on the part of the customer – ask when would it be corrected. If there is no wrong doing on the part of the customer, apologize profusely and offer them a token gift as a thank you for cooperating and spending time with you.

Post incident Actions

The actions you take post such an incident are even more important. Identify the causes for such internal errors and actively work to change policies / SOPs to ensure a wrong allegation NEVER happens.

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Rai Chowdhary

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