A death in the family caused us to contact Fidelity Investments, where the deceased’s assets were held. Fidelity told us we’d need to sign a form for redistribution of assets, and it would arrive in five business days. When about two weeks had elapsed, and no form, a family member called Fidelity and was told a/they had no way of tracking the form or even verifying it had been sent and b/mailing the form was unnecessary since it was available online. We then downloaded the form, completed it, and were done. 19 days after the original request (so 15 business days) the forms finally arrived in the mail. Two days after that, a second set of forms arrived in the mail.
There were three people involved on the recipient end. One of them had previous experience with Fidelity through a lump sum disbursement of a retirement account and commented “Fidelity… I should have known.” The second had no previous experience with Fidelity and is unlikely to establish a relationship on the basis of this experience. The third was me, who has had his business at Fidelity for many years and has always been delighted with the service and so was baffled by this Keystone Kops routine.
So, is there a double standard, where existing customers are treated better than potential new customers? In a perfect world, that’s the way it would be. But how much does it cost to gain a new customer? Wouldn’t it have been better to woo these two prospects rather than driving them away?
In a word, yes. Customers die, change their focus or get lured away by a more aggressive competitor. You ALWAYS need new business, and if you can acquire it at low cost that gives you more resources to use for pampering existing customers. Fidelity should get its departments talking to one another so fiascos like this aren’t the face of the company to prospective customers.