Oblivious

My wife finally closed a mostly-inactive bank account last weekend.
She would've liked to have kept it (for a number of reasons) but was finding it hard to justify paying fees each month for something that she used for paying a single recurring bill (and even that was recently changed to a different bank).

Anyway, it struck me while we were there just how out of touch with reality the institution was. They seemed entirely oblivious to:
- what their competitors are offering
- the fact that consumers have a choice
and
- what's standard in other industries (and therefore coming to be expected by customers)

They seemed to have no knowledge of (or even interest in) the fact that other financial institutions had zero-fee options.

We were there mid-afternoon on a Saturday, and they were already closing up for the weekend. Meanwhile, the stripmall they're located in was still packed with people going to various other businesses. Not to mention that at least two of their major competitors are quite aggressively promoting their extended operating hours.

Adding insult to injury, peppered throughout the branch were signs announcing their new fee structure, in which the majority of the most-common transactions were increasing in cost.

And then there's the brand impression of the actual closing of the account:
First, they didn't seem too concerned to be losing a customer. Made no effort to try to find a solution that might keep us happy.

Second, the actual process involved a security check (to make sure they give the balance remaining in the account to the right person) in which they had to request a signature card from my wife's "regular" branch (that she hasn't actually been to in years). This signature was from 1980-something. Really useful. And of course the account is in her maiden name, so her current ID wasn't sufficient. After much waiting around, they eventually decided to just give her a bank draft in her maiden name, without actually requiring any valid ID. So much for security.
They somehow simultaneously managed to make the process both:
a.) Pointless
and
b.) Time consuming
One of these is acceptable, but both is bordering on an airport security level of ridiculousness.

I really wonder if this institution will continue to exist for many more decades if they don't change. How many people out there are actually satisfied with the extremely-limited bankers' hours, being forced to go in-branch for things that could be done by phone or Internet, paying fees for (literally) nothing, etc. etc. etc.?