Complaints received at the Bank of Butterfield's customer service department have increased by 36 percent in the last quarter, compared to in 1999, according to the bank's president and chief executive officer.

Calum Johnston made the revelation in the Bank of Butterfield Employee Newsletter for November 2000.

But Mr. Johnston added that compliments about service increased by more than 100 percent from the last quarter. He said: "We received 53 complaints this quarter, up 36 percent over the previous quarter. Most complaints were about unprofessional staff, telephone difficulties, debit cards, credit cards or ATMs, incorrect customer information, loan rejections or instructions not acted on correctly.'' He added: "The good news, however, is that compliments increased by more than 100 percent from last quarter.'' In the main article for the Butterfield Now publication, it was stated that the bank was well on track for its profit target, and gave itself a quarterly report card of a "B plus''.

The bank produced a record net income for the quarter of $14.28 million, and Mr. Johnston complimented his staff on their efforts to help the company get good results.

But he said: "We are well on track for our profit target. Although the results were very good, we still have a lot to do and we can do better in the future.'' And he said that customers must come first to improve customer service.

"We should think about how we would like to be treated when we go into a store, another business place or a Government department. Service can make all the difference to how a customer feels about doing business with us.'' Mr. Johnston also told staff that the business had to work at reducing errors and look to getting it right first time.

Complaints rise He said: "Errors are still too frequent, but we are getting better. We have been tracking errors and they are decreasing in number, but could be reduced much more.

"Each error costs hundreds and perhaps thousands of dollars to fix. So getting it right the first time is important.'' Mr. Johnston also said that reducing expenses was important to keep profits high, and said they had been kept even this year because of unfilled vacancies.

He said: "Expenses were almost flat on a year over year basis, which is great. However, much of this was because we have a number of job vacancies to be filled. When we fill these vacancies, and as we spend money on premises, equipment and systems, we expect that expenses will start to creep up this quarter. Continued care about all costs is still necessary.'' Calum Johnston