Like sour milk. - Customer Service Representative (CSR) TD Employee Review

TD Bank was the most chaotic and disorganized financial institution that I have ever worked for. Of the more than two years that I worked for TD, I watched company culture shift dramatically from “customer first” to “sales first”, putting increasing pressure on “store” employees to generate what the company calls “SR”. Efforts focused on cold-calling customers and completing forms known as Discovery Sessions—where employees are encouraged to search through customer’s transaction history and record potential SR generating leads such as transactions with other financial institutions, mortgage payments outside of TD, and even searching the customer’s home on Zillow for an estimate to see if they can be offered home equity loans upon their next visit. When the pandemic began, things really took a turn. As early as June 2020, TD shifted to a very aggressive and, in my opinion, toxic appointment culture. This same appointment culture went as far as to actively encourage employees to bring customers into the branch during a global pandemic, threatening the health and safety of other customers and employees for a quick buck. Regional leadership begins having stores send in their sales numbers (down to the number of checking accounts) at the end of each day, as well as the number of appointments scheduled. Micromanagement in regards to appointments came down to daily and weekly appointment goals, the stress of which drove some employees to fake appointments to keep micromanagement at ease. In terms of technology at TD, things are an absolute dumpster fire. TD’s online banking and mobile app have very bad UX, and the banking platform is frequently experiencing downtime for customers. Other features that you would expect, such as sending wires online and setting debit card limits are missing, requiring an in-person branch visit. TD has terrible systems for determining check holds, placing holds on items for upwards of six business days that are all but impossible to remove, as most financial institutions—TD included—do not verify checks to release funds. This same system will place a hold on a check that actually is fraudulent, and often clear it and allow the fraudster access to the illegitimate funds. Basic things such as obtaining mortgage statements for customers is an entire production. Customers cannot access their mortgage statements online, and the phone channel will not email the customer the statement and instead refer them to the branch. The kicker? The branch cannot access mortgage statements and instead has to call that department where hold times frequently exceed 20 minutes and are often longer. The customer at this point is infuriated, and at that moment you want to be literally anywhere but at that desk. These hoops would be worth jumping through if the mortgage rate was ahead of other banks, but alas TD is as conservative as it gets. Turnover is high at TD, and the bank has hemorrhaged some of its best talent in the last twelve months. During my time at TD, I saw nearly 15 employees come and go through my branch. Naturally, turnover caused severe staffing issues leading to employee stress and customer frustration. At times, the branch would operate an entire day with only two employees, which caused numerous issues but mostly made us worry for our safety in the event of a robbery, as stores in the market had recently been robbed at gunpoint. Bank leadership pressured branch management to direct employees who were negative for COVID but still feeling sick or those who were exposed to someone who tested positive to report in to work anyway for coverage. Branch and regional management were always rotating around, each with different game plans and strategies for business that would go on for several months until they were gone. On an operational level, there was a constant mismatch between company policy/procedures documented on the company intranet, and the policies and procedures set locally by operational leadership, that of which were not documented. This made maintaining an operationally sound branch very difficult as it was often unclear which procedure to follow, and email responses to our questions were sweet and well-meaning, but also often were pointed—under the assumption that we hadn’t checked the intranet before reaching out. Staffing challenges strike again, often requiring employees to compile together audit documents who really have no business doing so for their position, and for no additional pay. PAY. TD Bank notoriously is one of the lowest-paying banks in not only the market but the entire footprint. This is unacceptable.