Customer Service: Commerce Bank

By using those cheap deposits for loans and investments, Commerce turns a nice profit. Last year, revenue increased 34%, and earnings rose 29%. That performance has made Commerce Bancorp, the bank's holding company, a Wall Street favorite. From 1990 to 2000, total return on Commerce stock was an eye-popping 2,048%. The stock split last December and still ended at a record high.

Commerce is one of the country's fastest-growing banks. It's also the silliest and most over-the-top bank imaginable. How many banks have not one but two costumed mascots and a third character who is heard from but never seen? One of the mascots, Mr. C, is a jolly, oversized red letter with white gloves. He's a walking logo, Commerce's version of the Golden Arches. Buzz is an overjoyed, human-sized bee who ensures that the staff is creating -- you guessed it -- buzz within the branches. The bank takes its playfulness seriously, because it inspires the company's obsession with service -- or, in Commerce lingo, its focus on "wowing" customers. Hence, the name of its third character, the ultramysterious Dr. Wow (more on him or her later).

Last year, Commerce opened 35 new branches, including its first 4 New York branches. This year, the plan is to open 40 more, the majority of them in Manhattan and on Long Island. Hill isn't worried about going up against market leaders Chase and Citibank. Following a series of mergers that resulted in branch closings throughout the city, convenient banking is in short supply, he says. His chief concern then? "Culture, culture, culture." Because without superior service -- without the "wow" -- Commerce could easily become just another bank.

How to Wow the Customer

"We're asking you to forget the way you delivered your skills at other banks." Vernon Hill is talking to new managers at Commerce University, the training department that was inspired, in part, by Hamburger University at McDonald's. "In many ways," he says, "you have joined a service cult." Nordstrom has its Nordies. Commerce has its Wow Team. ("We can't call ours Commies," says DiFlorio.) Branches try to "out-wow" one another. Employees are praised for being "wowy." And every March, Hill recognizes top performers at the companywide Wow Awards. " 'Wow' is more than a word around here," says John Manning, vice president of -- that's right -- the Wow Department. "It's a feeling that you give and get."

That type of obsessive service culture starts with hiring the right people. "This is not the job for someone who's interested in being cool or indifferent," Manning says. And instead of the usual humdrum orientation class, every new employee attends a one-day course at Commerce University called Traditions. It's part game show, part training session, part common sense. Banks do all sorts of stupid things to customers, Manning tells new hires. That's why the company has a "Kill a Stupid Rule" program. "If you identify a rule that prevents you from wowing customers," Manning says, "we'll pay you fifty bucks."

While Commerce employees are trying to wow customers, the company is trying to wow its staff. The business of banking is grueling, especially for tellers, who make less than other employees and have the most contact with customers. Weekly events like Red Fridays keep the bank playful. That's when the Wow Patrol, along with Mr. C, visits branches and takes photographs of staffers wearing so much red that the bank looks like a Christmas party. Some customers even get in on the act. "It sounds juvenile," says Manning, "but people like getting their picture taken with Mr. C."

The ultimate keeper of the bank's culture, Manning tells employees, is Dr. Wow. Such a character really does exist (although he or she declined to sit down for an interview). Dr. Wow receives hundreds of letters and emails from customers and employees about the bank's service, which Dr. Wow forwards to the appropriate staffer, along with a congratulatory note. But ask employees about the identity of Dr. Wow, and they all say the same thing: "I don't know." And they don't, insists Manning.

Some letters from customers deserve truly special recognition. When members of a family in New York wrote to the bank about the "great service" that employees Theodocia Edwards and Dean Mitchell provided, Manhattan senior retail officer Daniel DelRoccilli decided to do something special. He visited the branch and presented them with a bouquet of red balloons that said "Wow!" and led the branch staff in a cheer that amused the customers looking on: "We are from the Wow Patrol/And we are here to say/Dean deserves a big wow cheer/for wowing every day!"