WordFood

Last night I was at my local Wells Fargo Bank making a deposit when I asked the teller for an updated balance. The balance showed only what had been deposited that day in my business account. I asked what had happened to the rest of the funds, and she said, you took it all out. I said that I hadn’t, and she turned the monitor to show me. “See? Here are your withdrawals.” My eyes nearly popped out of my cranium as I saw that some stranger had wiped out every red cent in my business account through cyber theft, leaving me with absolutely nothing. And vulnerable to more attacks.

I nearly went through the roof. Quickly the teller called a personal banker who brought me to her office and said precisely what I needed to hear. “We’re going to take care of you,” she said. “Let me handle this.” She was on the phone with the Fraud team in seconds and we closed the account. As it was late in the day on a Friday there wasn’t much else we could do except open a new business account which their business banker did right away.

I was given several numbers to call and that night I contacted the fraud lines. One of the young men I spoke with said, “Ma’am, I’ve been with Wells Fargo for four years. We’re going to get you through this, I guarantee it. You’re going to be taken care of.”

My business banker explained that Wells Fargo would take the loss in making me whole for the amount that I had lost. They aren’t insured for cyber crime like this. However I am working diligently with every law enforcement agency possible to help track down who did this, as I hardly think I’m the only victim. Likely this is a larger operation and I’m one of many.

That terribly vulnerable feeling that you have when the “house” you’ve built has been violated needs immediate attention. Whether you’ve had a theft, experienced a personal attack, like me had a cyber theft- you feel naked indeed. In that moment the most important thing is that those around you understand your need to feel secure and safe. You must hear the right words.

Wells Fargo has sometimes frustrated me in the past, and we don’t always see eye to eye. But every single banker who touched me yesterday went out of their way to ensure that I knew I would have my funds back and that I would be whole. That’s WordFood of the highest order and that is how you earn customer loyalty.

In your businesses, when you have a customer who is unhappy or in a jam, do your employees have the same authority and commitment to make sure they are kept whole? That they can feed your valued customers the WordFood they need to hear so that they will not only come back again and again, but tell all their friends how great you are as a company? No advertising is more powerful than this kind of word of mouth.

I never thought I’d say this but Wells Fargo has made me feel safe, and for that, they have earned my loyalty. Have you earned your customers’ loyalty? What have you taught your employees to say in an emergency?

This is one of the characteristics that make a good company great.