My friend James walked past a branch of the Royal Bank today (and yes, I’ve been a customer of theirs since 1987) and saw this through one of the windows of their ground floor street-facing meeting rooms:
The text of the whiteboard reads:
RRSP Loans
1) Rebuttle [sic] from last week’s objections
a) I don’t have enough money right now
b) I need to speak to my accountant first
How do we overcome this?
It’s a reminder that you have to be careful about what you leave visible in ground-level offices with windows facing the street. I don’t think we know enough about the context of the meeting during which this was written on the whiteboard, but it’s worth noting that:
- The way it’s phrased — and once again, there isn’t enough context to know the intent — it appears as though the bank is trying to find a way to quash the very sensible objection of wanting to talk to one’s accountant before taking on a loan. An RRSP is one of the better financial tools available to just about every Canadian — a saving vehicle and a tax shelter — but it doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t talk to your accountant first. My suggestion would be to encourage customers to talk to their financial advisors, but also provide some kind of incentive to come back and apply for a loan after they’ve done so.
- They should turn sensitive material that could potentially make them look like dicks away from the window.
- Considering that even the entry-level jobs at banks require a university or college degree, it’s sad that there’s someone there who thinks that “rebuttle” is the correct spelling.
