Why Chase loves Hispanic customers
Chase recently touted that it 400,000 customers have signed up to received their statements in Spanish and lists its bevy of customer services that are offered in Spanish in a recent press release. Presumably they are doing this to attract more Hispanic customers. At first glance, it seems admirable that Chase is trying to better serve a demographic which is traditionally under served and may not have access to the same services that others have, leaving them at a disadvantage.
But I’ve gotten used to questioning the motive of anything Chase does, given the many many Chase horror stories I have seen.
In this case, I can’t help but think that customers who speak only Spanish would be less likely to seek justice when dealing with problems or mistreatment they might encounter with Chase. I don’t think this is inherent to Spanish-only speaking people, but to anyone who finds themselves in a country where they don’t speak the predominantly spoken and written language.
So why do I question Chase’s motives in this case? Chase’s press release leaves out mention of some very important services such as bilingual ATM’s and bilingual online banking. Surely they would mention those in a press release if they were offered. ATM’s at least seem fairly essential to banking and not understanding what the ATM is telling you would be difficult, especially when there is a problem. Also, while they do mention in in the press release that they offer bilingual services in their branches, they way they says absolutely nothing about how many branches. It could be in only two branches out of thousands.
This isn’t such a strange concept for a bank like Chase. If they are willing to stack the deck in certain ways against their banking customers (automatic overdraft protection, selective order if debit/credit application) and their credit card customers (moving due dates, preemptive rate increases) why wouldn’t they do the same thing to customers whose primary language wasn’t English by excluding some essential services from those that are offered bilingually?
Bad bad Chase | admin August 5, 2010
