WHEN I DEAL WITH MY BANK and phone company, I am reminded of an Indian folk story about six blind men who try to learn the truth about elephants. One touches the side of the elephant and concludes that it is like a wall. Another puts his hand on its trunk and announces that it resembles a snake. A third feels the elephant’s leg and proclaims that it is like a huge cow. Each man understands a part of the elephant, but nobody understands the whole elephant.

Until recently, I had five relationships with Bank One?a checking account, a home mortgage, a credit card, private banking and a small business account for my consulting work. While I saw Bank One as one company, it treated me as five different customers. And like the blind men, no part of the bank saw the whole elephant. The private banking unit classified me as a premium customer because I kept healthy account balances. But the small business unit slapped fees on me because I kept the balance in my small business account too low. I got separate statements at different times. And while my private banker was pleasant, she could not help me with online banking or service at the local branch. The bank presented many faces and talked to me in several voices. As a result, it had no idea how much business I did with the bank as a whole and gave me no incentive to keep all my relationships there. Last week I fired Bank One and moved my accounts to Citicorp, which promises to treat me as one customer by combining my balances, sending me one statement and giving me one point of contact.

My phone company, AT&T, promised better. A few years ago, AT&T offered me a revolutionary communications package called the AT&T Personal Network. The compelling proposition: "One rate, one bill and one number for customer care." I signed up for six relationships with AT&T?long distance, wireless, calling card, credit card, cable TV and cable modem. Things seemed to go well until I had a billing problem with my wireless service. The "one number" that I called put me in a queue. Then I was transferred to another queue?for wireless customers. It would have been faster to call the wireless customer-care number directly. I got my billing problem resolved, resulting in a large credit balance in my wireless account that was reflected in my next bill. But a month later, a collection agency called, claiming that my long-distance account was delinquent. "But AT&T owes me money," I protested. "We don’t know about that, sir. Your long-distance account is overdue," I was told curtly. So much for "one number, one bill." Now I use four different vendors?SBC Communications for local calls, MCI for long distance, AT&T for cable TV and modem, and Verizon Wireless for wireless calls. Meanwhile, A&T has quietly dropped the Personal Network service.