Before I travel abroad, I call my credit card companies to let them know where I’ll be no matter how many countries I stop in. I started doing this after I was left scrambling to find an alternate method of payment when a credit card company thought the card was stolen and denied payment.

One of the companies is a pleasure to deal with – AMEX – one call takes care of it all. In and out in about 30 seconds. My other credit card company has me answer multiple questions, one of which invariably involves having my payment history in front of me. Not very user friendly particularly when I’m calling from an airport on my way out.

Needless to say, I tend to use my AMEX more than any other card particularly while traveling abroad.

This tension is typical between customer support/service folks in a company and security folks.  So, in your organization, do you strike a balance that puts the customer’s needs first or do you make 99.9% of the people jump through hoops to catch the 0.1% of potential crooks?

Posted in: IT support, Managing Support, Travel