Predictive Text Analysis - WTF?

It's all about prediction, but this post isn't about horoscopes. I want to rant a little about an analytical technique used by organisations - predictive text analysis. An odd subject you might think. But I'm fired up to write about it because I've just seen it used so, so badly, by the bank I use - Mashreq.

Mashreq recently 'enhanced' their online banking system - and it was, of course, all for the customers. Or so they say ...

So I visited the new portal and found that if I wanted to pay a bill or transfer money to anyone in my existing beneficiary list I had to reactivate the beneficiary. Problem is, I have to do this one by one and each involves at least four steps involving security questions, mobile phones and codes.

I sent them an email suggesting that this was not ideal and this is where things became very strange. The response I received from them:

Mashreq`s response to your Feedback REF-xxxxxx is as follows:
We sincerely thank you for taking out time and writing to us. You are one of our esteemed customers and it is a privilege to be of service to you. We would like to take this opportunity to assure you that your feedback is of prime importance to us as it provides us with an opportunity to not only assess, but to also improve our service standards. We value your relationship with the bank immensely and assure you that we will make every effort to give you the best banking experience. Please to advise you that for the security of the customer accounts and credit cards the feature for adding the beneficiary on Mashreq online has been introduced. For any further assistance, please feel free to email us or contact our 24 hrs. Direct Banking Centre on 04-4244444 to speak to a Personal Banking Advisor.
If you require any further assistance, please do not hesitate to write back.
Thank you for banking with Mashreq.
Regards,
Mashreq
http://www.mashreqbank.com/
Please note this is a system generated email do not reply to this message.


(The emphasis is mine.)

The beneficiary process has been there for years - I've been using it for years. And I appreciate it. What I don't appreciate is Mashreq not addressing my issue - which is that the process to reactivate them is cumbersome and that it has to be done one at a time.

And what I really don't appreciate is being reassured about my value as a customer when they can't even be bothered to read complaint emails and rely on inadequate implementation of predictive text analysis, and then tell me it's a system generated email and not to respond.

Way to go Mashreq ... I took time out to write. If you're not going to take time out to read at least make sure you predictive text analysis system is good enough!