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Yet just like retail stores, banks are offering a trade-off that they believe most customers will accept: more products in exchange for less personal service. Today's depositors with as little as $500 to invest will find that banks give them more possibilities than ever before. Banks now offer an array of money-management accounts and even discount stock-brokerage service. Banks have vastly improved upon old-time bankers' hours of 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. New York's Citibank boasts that 80% of its depositors use its 24-hour automatic-teller machines and that more than half of all customers say they no longer need to venture inside the bank.
Deregulation has prompted airlines to make daring experiments with service, sometimes to harrowing ends. People Express provided an example of just how far consumers can be pushed in a trade-off for low fares. Its aggressively no-frills service, featuring such hassles as on-board ticketing and extra fees for checked baggage, gave the airline a negative image among business flyers and probably hastened its demise. Its rival, Texas Air, which officially bought People Express last month, prevailed partly by making a point of offering low fares without reducing service below generally accepted levels. The airline-merger boom, too, has disrupted service in the airline industry, as huge airlines combine their schedules and crews. The Department of Transportation announced earlier this month that complaints about poor airline service, especially delays, increased 30% during 1986.
A prime indignity for airline customers is to be bumped, or denied a reserved seat, because the carrier has booked too many passengers on a flight. Overbooking is a product of fare wars; because airlines are collecting less per seat, they want to ensure a full load to make a profit. The practice of overbooking crops up in other businesses when managers want to make the most of a prime-time rush of customers. At peak times popular hotels and restaurants sometimes bump customers who show up even modestly late for their reservations.
For many consumers the breakup of the Bell System in 1983 contributed to the decline of Western civilization. The split of old reliable Ma Bell into seven regional operating companies left many customers convinced that they were worse off, even though long-distance competition has brought better rates. Indeed, according to a scorecard published in November by Communications Week, local service and repair are now fairly inconsistent across the U.S. The trade publication gave the top grade of A-minus to Ameritech, which serves Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Wisconsin and Michigan. The lowest grade of C-plus went to Southwestern Bell (Arkansas, Kansas, Missouri, Oklahoma and Texas) and NYNEX (New York and New England).
Consumers miss the personal touch in health care especially. Technology has brought great improvements in curative powers, but patients wish they could get more attention from their doctors rather than being seen mostly by nurses and technicians. Says Victoria Leonard, executive director of the National Women's Health Network: "We see doctors not answering questions, giving curt answers, not spending enough time with patients. Years ago a doctor was more of a family adviser. Now medicine tends to attract the person who enjoys the high-tech procedures. Almost by definition, that's not a people person."