Relationships

I have been a customer of Royal Bank for over 15 years since I moved to Windsor. I have dealt with their local bank branch, RBC Dominion Securities, their mortgages group—all the groups and services that people and their family need over the years. But my relationship is not built solely on the Institution but on the business and personal relationships I have developed with the people who work there. I get to know them and they get to know me.

I have found that if one acts in a proper and professional manner, even when one has a disagreement, then the other side acts in a similar fashion. As the relationship grows, one often goes out of his/her way to help the other, not because you have to but because you want to.

Of course, every relationship has its good times and bad. Recently, I had a “bad” moment. Without going into what it was, I got annoyed and frustrated at something simple, it appeared to me, that the Bank messed up several times. I contacted my DS adviser and my branch Client Care manager and complained. Eventually everything got straightened out with apologies given.

Today in the mail I received a handwritten note from the manager and a token of appreciation for me and my wife for our branch relationship and that they had caused us a problem. It was an apology for what they did and a small gift to tell us they were sorry and wanted our business. It was totally unexpected and something that would make it very difficult for me to want to change branches even if we have a problem again. They cared and exceeded expectations.

As far as I am concerned, that is the way to build and maintain a relationship even in the most trying of times. If you want to know which RBC bank branch or which RBC DS adviser to work with, email me!

What has this got to do with anything you might ask? I thought about this in the context of events we have experienced in Windsor over the past few years.

A question I had: Do you really think we have built a relationship with others such that the Mayor can phone someone up on behalf of Windsor and ask for a favour or something unusual but important that the City might need. Do you think anyone would go out of their way to help us? Or are we viewed as a “laughing stock” amongst cities in Canada and a royal pain so that we will be rejected and ignored?

You know the list as well as I. Here are a few of the troubling events that I can think of off the top. Windsor, over the past:

• Became involved in a “he said, she-said” fight with some of our leading citizens
• Won’t talk in a meaningful fashion with a City company that is a large employer and taxpayer to try to solve a pressing problem
• Attacked Senior Levels and wonders why no one listens to us or why we do not receive grants that other jurisdictions do
• Snubbed Senior Levels at least twice publicly, the people we have to deal with on the border
• Interfered in other jurisdiction’s political events at awkward moments
• Became identified as the border problem
• Failed to act in an open and transparent manner with its citizens.
  
  

I do not need to list more items. You can add ones you remember too.

Fulvio’s words still haunt me. I just wondered what it will be like for the City if we continue our past practices for the next four years. I just wanted to ask the question and have you think about it too.