Dear Liz: You recently wrote about online banks versus brick and mortar, but you missed one point in favor of local banks. If there is a major screw-up, you can go there and talk with a person. That’s better than being stuck in an endless phone loop or with an unhelpful “bot” online. And being face to face (pleasantly) is more likely to get help and sympathy.
Answer: Banks vary enormously in the quality of their service. Some online banks pride themselves on quickly connecting their customers to well-trained human representatives around the clock. Meanwhile, some local banks have indifferent staff and inconvenient hours.
But we can agree that chatbots — computer programs that purport to answer common customer questions — often provide a truly awful user experience. Any bank that refuses to connect you to a human being on request is a bank to be avoided.
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