I use to work at Banc of America Investment Services, the brokerage arm of Bank of America. One of the things that automatically would shut down a phone broker

I use to work at Banc of America Investment Services, the brokerage arm of Bank of America. One of the things that automatically would shut down a phone broker was a rude customer. I can attest that the best way to go is to be as polite as possible. For a dollar amount that big that technically wasn't the bank's fault, the customer service representative has to convince a manager to sign off on the reversal. That takes time, and any time off the phone or having the customer on hold is counted against the customer service representative. This directly affects bonuses.