Bouquets for BOQ

Earlier in the year Gam and I switched our everyday banking to Bank of Queensland, through their Toowong branch. We had some issue with a screwup of the balance transfer on our credit card, which I thought had been resolved but has only been partially resolved, so we've had cause to visit the branch maybe twice in the months since signing up.

The girl who set up our accounts not only recognised us and knew us by name when we went in there as a couple (we seem to be fairly recognisable as such, I suppose) but also when I went in there on my own. She was also incredibly helpful and always called back with updates of what was going on. That kind of service is amazing enough for a bank.

But today I phoned the Toowong branch to follow something up. I haven't been to the branch since late March. The same girl who we've dealt with on previous occasions answered the phone. And when I said who I was, she actually knew my name and the issue I was calling about without having to type it into a computer and see what came up. Seriously. I am blown away. I emailed my compliments about her to BOQ... I hope they pay her a lot of money to stay around, because customer service like that from a bank is so, so very rare.

I used to seriously resent it when Commonwealth charged $5 per month without telling me my student status had expired, but we happily pay our $4 per month to BOQ... even if it cost more than Commonwealth we would stick with them because the service is so good. Let's hope they never indulge in the same sort of cost-cutting crap that leads to job losses at the big banks, because dealing with real people makes a huge difference.