Long story short, I walked out three hours later with the promise of a phone call and a resolution within the following two hours. I still couldn’t use my account, and had just spent hours — on top of the days wasted on the hotline. I was fuming.
Last week, struggling with phone and internet banking services, I ventured out to my bank’s branch in the heart of Hong Kong’s financial district. Spread out over several floors of prime real estate, the big institution with its name sprinkled across the city was teeming with people – from two taking temperatures on entry to multiple assistants enquiring what they could help me with even before I reached the customer service counter. I got in the queue.
My turn came. The counter agent couldn’t solve my problem. His colleague had no better luck. They then brought out their “digital ambassador.” She took me to a computer and got me to call the customer hotline. When that failed, they tried to get me to fill out a paper form and wait a few days. I lost it. I demanded to see the branch manager.
