Five Things Your Bank Better Offer

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Customer Service
How hard is your lender willing to work for you? To figure that out, ask for testimonials from other small-business customers, suggests Paul Merski, chief economist at the Independent Community Bankers of America, a trade group. (Citibank, for one, has kiosks in every branch to gather customer feedback; the responses are downloaded to the branch managers at the end of each day.) But customer service is about more than fielding complaints; it's about investing in the resources needed to do the job well. TD Banknorth in Portland, Maine, (a unit of TD Bank Financial Group) goes so far as to assign a relationship manager to each small-business customer. Whatever its methods, make your bank demonstrate--up front and throughout the relationship--that it has the will and resources to meet your needs.

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