when you have been bitten too often by the reverse. It is unfortunately a very rare quality. I am cynical about loyalty, probably because I have spent a great part of my life in and around politics and political organisations.
I was chairman of a hundred and thirty strong branch of a political party at nineteen and have experience in various roles since then, including a stint in Parliament, a longer stint on the Central Executive of a political party, and the past two and a half decades as a political lobbyist. From politics I learnt that loyalty almost always flows upwards. I also learnt, as did Stephanie in her career, that there is a corollary to that maxim. The fact that one of our bodily functions is often called ‘droppings’ is not just a mere observation of physical phenomena, it is also a law of bureaucracy because that particular commodity, even in the metaphorical sense, always falls downwards.
Sadly, in modern banking the customer is no longer at the top of the totem pole. The shareholder is, and that means the dollar is. Staff too, have been ruthlessly down-valued in the ever-increasing demand for greater productivity at less cost. Profits and share price are everything. The rule of “loyalty upward and ‘crap’ downward” has taken over.
It is no wonder the author of this book, with the value she placed upon customers and loyalty downward as well as upward, eventually fell foul of the system, or cistern, depending upon your view of the modern world of banking.
One last anecdote will illustrate both Stephanie’s commitment to problem solving and the value she places upon loyalty on the one hand and the ‘don’t care much’ attitude to even long-standing customers by the banks. For investment purposes, I recently sought an addition to my line of credit with the bank. I was rejected out of hand because I did not have a ‘regular’ income. It was age discrimination, but no one would admit it. I am sixty-three and retired. But since retiring seven years ago, my net worth (after living expenses) has increased by a satisfactory percentage every year. The bank discounted this as ‘risk’ income, crediting only conventional income, without which they were not interested in doing business with me. The fact that a rival bank offered all I wanted and more, provided I left my old bank, didn’t seem to stir them at all. I soon learnt that employees only get credit for finding new customers. Loans officers and bank managers are not much interested in satisfying the needs of long-standing, existing customers. First, it’s not their job, and second, even if they keep you with the bank, how do they prove it to their masters? There’s no change in statistics. There’s just no reward in it.
I learned from my now retired but loyal bank manager there is a special section called a ‘retention unit’. Sure enough, it was their job to hang onto old customers. Even then I had to wheedle and cajole and lie a little about what the rival bank was offering. After about six weeks I managed to win the fight to stay with the bank I had been with since I started a savings account as a kid at school. Shouldn’t it have been the other way around - them fighting to keep me? Yep. That’s what my ‘real’ bank manager said too. So once again I am indebted to her for solving yet another problem, albeit by proxy.
The bank may not miss Stephanie Retchless (or not that they are aware of, anyway) but many of her customers, and many staff who valued being valued by their boss, do. She was not necessarily one who broke the mould, but she sure broke most records for the sorts of things customers and workers at the coal face appreciate, and for that she paid a price. This book is indeed a necessary cathartic experience for her, but it will be a text book for the lay person well into the future. It is long overdue in coming and well worth the read. You can’t buy this sort of good advice in the regular marketplace.
Colin Lamont1
1 Colin Lamont left Australia to study at London University, was recruited by the then British Colonial Officer and trained and worked as a Detective Inspector in the Royal Hong Kong Police before being seconded to British Intelligence, Far East. He returned to Australia and did a stint in Parliament and then became a professional political lobbyist. He has also owned his own newspaper and has written several books on history. He is now retired and living on the Gold Coast.
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