Emails to Hubert | Hubert Financial | Discussion forum

I have found Hubert to be very prompt returning emails.
Last weekend I sent emails to 3 different FIs. Hubert was the first to respond.

It is my understanding that "email etiquette", as a rule of thumb, should only contain one query per email. Perhaps you would do better if you break them down and send separately. Sometimes a particular question will need to be routed to a particular person.

I noticed recently that Hubert improved its email correspondence slightly. It used to be that everything was signed "Hubert" - i.e. anonymously. The most recent one that I received had a real name signature.

The one that really annoys me is EQ, which sends me an email every month telling me how much interest I earned. I don't think that information belongs in email. Haven't gotten around to complaining about it yet. Perhaps there is a way to put a stop to it, but I never asked for it.

I also received an email response from DUCA recently which made a reference to how much interest I earned with them last year. This information was not necessary to answering the question I had asked, and it too annoyed me, for the same reason.

Sometimes i have even restrained myself from including the follow-up question, e.g. "if 'yes', then....?"
I wait for the first answer, then , if indeed 'yes', I ask the second one separately.

In some workplaces, employees are clocked on how much time they spend per email.

Use short sentences and short paragraphs. Avoid complex explanations. Get to the point quickly. These approaches will improve your odds.

Remember too that some of these folks are programmed not to give a clear answer, especially if they don't really know the answer. Think 'politicians', for instance.

And some appear to really dislike email. Just as you want to use it because of its clarity and 'paper trail', they don't necessarily want to give that clarity - and may not even be capable of doing so.
Twice recently, I have received phone calls from people I wrote to at FIs because they didn't want to answer me by email. - and these are people who know who I am and have met me in person. In one of these cases, the question was never answered satisfactorily and I have given up hope that it will be.

The moral of the story is that you can't force an email answer; you have to make it as easy as you can for them to respond.

Denise Milani said

You may have come up with the closest scenario. I have run into this before with younger folks who have no idea what customer service is, how ignorance, on their behalf, affects return business, and are lazy or don’t want to ask someone for help as they may think they will look incompetent.

Never the less I do everything that I can do online with Hubert. The questions did not need to be in a secure format. I know how to protect my self using email!!! Good God.....aren’t they in business to do MORE business from me? I can go elsewhere and get the answers with out spoon feeding some youngster, now In the real world or some millennial in oblivion.  

You seem really agitated about this.
It's worth remembering, perhaps, that for the most part these are not good jobs. The better-paying jobs are held by managers, who are harder to reach. The guy who answers my call in New Brunswick at 3 am may only be getting minimum wage or thereabouts. It's not in his interests to go running to his superior too often. Those folks want as few disruptions as possible. He may only do this if he perceives that the consequences will be worse if he doesn't - for him.

It helps to put yourself in their shoes to understand their mindset. Their job is not to satisfy you, necessarily. It's to satisfy their supervisor. And they are a long way down the food chain from worrying about retaining your business. If companies want their employees, let alone their subcontracted employees, to be concerned about that, they'd have to give them better pay and more autonomy, and the ability to redress wrongs, to use their wits. They don't and they won't., in almost all cases.

One of the reasons that Hubert is, generally, better at this than many other FIs is because, from what I can see, the people who answer the phone actually work there! The job is not sub-contracted.
The ones that sub-contract out of the country are the worst of the worst.

However, it's worth exposing these problems, and complaining. Bad publicity is the only thing that will force them to improve.

But, in your own interests, keep it simple. And don't expect them to be what they cannot be.

They may be quite happy to see you take your money away.

Good luck finding a more perfect FI. Let us know when you find one.