Airline passengers visiting eastern Europe used to be treated to the old “Welcome to XYZ-obrezny Airport. Please put your watches back ten years.”
How we clever, sophisticated upmarket Brits laughed. Until Ryanair provided £1 flights and we all flocked like mad to get cheap beer, clock the culture and buy holiday homes there.
Who cared about the ten year time gulf? Especially when seaside apartments and house prices reflected the one-decade-earlier prices.
Well, yesterday was NatWest’s turn to make the era error. Their clocks seem to be a little more ‘east European’ than one might have thought…
Having banked with them for probably 25 years — current accounts are such functional things that I can’t remember the actual number — they sent me a letter asking me to switch my current account to them. Obviously, I’m a pretty functional thing as far as they’re concerned, too.
Now, the interesting point about this is that I thought this sort of silly mistake stopped happening in the 90s. Possibly the 1890s. It used to be the butt of direct mail agencies whenever such poorly de-duped letters snuck through. Like ‘Dear Mr Deceased’ or ‘Dear Sir or Madam’. O these mistakes were such fun. But life was different then.
So to have such a letter arriving now seems doubly daft. Firstly, that they haven’t sorted their systems after so-o-o-o-o much time. And second that they’re offering new customers (such as ‘me’) the opportunity to gain a £100 reward. Except the real me can’t claim the pile of dosh on offer. Worse, as a loyal NatWest customer, I get zero nothing!
Normally, I wouldn’t mind as I don’t ever think about my bank — it’s just ‘there’ and does what I need when I want it. But, although I know why prospective customers get treated better than actual customers, NatWest is trying to position itself these days as a ‘nice’ bank. Why aren’t they being nice to me, then?
So let’s just suggest this: that NatWest checks the time and the new era and puts its own clocks forward by ten…maybe 15 years. And joins the digital revolution.
And Cally Dickson, of ‘Current Accounts’ (should that be ‘Not so current accounts?) you wrote to me suggesting I switch — what might you want to suggest now? Politely!
Written at 3pm on 26 October 2009
