Bank Customer Service

Yes - Santander tend to have noticeably poorer customer service that other banks.

First Direct usually come out highest on customer service..

Regards
Sunil

jetplane wrote: »

There are a lot of posts about how dreadful Santander is and I am due into branch tomorrow to discuss further products. I have been with A&L for nearly 20 years and any issues I have had have been resolved quickly. However, having read all of the problems customers are having, I am now considering moving.
But when I google bank reviews they all seem to have the same negative experiences and before I jump I am wondering are Santander really any worse than other banks, and if so does anyone know a bank with good customer service? :undecided
Thanks in anticipation

I'm sorry to say bit in my experience Yes there is a world of difference between Santander the Worlds Worst Bank, and any-one else.

First Direct in my experience are first class, as is the Co-Operative (including Smile).

I also believe that Coventry Building Society are very good, although I don't have direct experience with them.

Good Luck with moving banks

I'm with RBS, when I need to speak to customer service I get to call the bank down the road on the landline number.

Hi all

I switched to FD about 8 months ago and although they aren't bad, I definitely don't think they deserve this "best customer service" reputation they have! Sorry, but I feel I have to speak out!

I was previously with Cahoot - and had been for about 8 years with very little compaint - but was attracted by the £100 switch to FD and the "guarantee" of amazing CS. But its not true!! The CS at FD is no better than at Cahoot (both are fairly good but neither outstanding) and its made worse because of their reputation - you expect them to be amazing and then are left dissappointed!

Examples are:
1. When I switched to FD, they sent me all this lovely literature etc and a cheque book (requested on application), but no paying-in book! I asked why and they said you have to ask for one! Maybe I'm fussy, but surely when you open a bank account, wanting to pay money in is a fairly usual occurrence? It pee'd me off that I had to a) specifically ask for one and b) wait 5 days for it to arrive in the post...

2. A good point is that their cheque-paying in facility is very easy - if you can go to an HSBC branch, you can easily scan your cheques and they are paid in instantly and it hits your account that day. I don't have a branch near me, so I use their postal service - which again is very quick and easy and within 48hrs the cheque usually hits your account. However....when you request extra envelopes from their website, you can't choose how many you need (you could with cahoot), so they send you an undefined number of envelopes - usually 5 (which I get through pretty quickly) but recently they have started sending just ONE per request. In addition, the envelopes are no longer pre-paid - they actually make you pay for the postage to send in your cheques! How is this good CS??!

3. In addition, with my previous bank, I had built up over the years a "payment address book" which is all the details of people I pay money to with any regularity. Its really convenient as I can just select that person form the list and make a payment without needing to re-enter thei details each time. However, when moving to FD they were not able to port this over, so I had to set all these details up again. OK, no major crisis, but a pain none the less.

4. Then with FD's version the "payment address book", I must admit its pretty easy to set up details to pay people etc, but there is no way to edit that list or delete anyone from it! So I no have this huge list of people I've paid, some of which was a one off and I can't delete it and some now have details which have changed and I can't edit it. (I realise this maybe isn't CS, but it is service of sorts).

5. More CS based - they have secure messaging, which is great, except they take usually 3 working days to reply! Cahoot would pretty much always reply within 24 hrs! This I am not impressed with.

There are more areas of dissactisfaction, but I can't remember any more right now. I realise none of these are particularly awful, but put them all together and add it to the claim that they are the bank with apparently "the best CS" - I'm afraid I just can't agree!

Anyway, rant over....I suppose the up-side is that at least they pay you £100 to leave if you aren't happy! Guess I'll be scooping that up then :-)

Natalie

namford wrote: »

The CS at FD is no better than at Cahoot (both are fairly good but neither outstanding) and its made worse because of their reputation - you expect them to be amazing and then are left dissappointed!

Everyone will have their own examples of good/bad customer service and not even First Direct claim to achieve a 100% success rate.. for instance Cahoot seem unable/unwilling to close my (empty) savings account for some reason.. let alone the amount of downtime and uncompetitive services they now offer.

However, I suspect you were expecting a bit too much from your move...

1. When I switched to FD, they sent me all this lovely literature etc and a cheque book (requested on application), but no paying-in book! I asked why and they said you have to ask for one! Maybe I'm fussy, but surely when you open a bank account, wanting to pay money in is a fairly usual occurrence? It pee'd me off that I had to a) specifically ask for one and b) wait 5 days for it to arrive in the post...

I've found most banks no longer send pay-in books by default and you need to request them specifically - and 5 days is not a bad turn around for that sort of request..

when you request extra envelopes from their website, you can't choose how many you need (you could with cahoot), so they send you an undefined number of envelopes - usually 5 (which I get through pretty quickly) but recently they have started sending just ONE per request.

Have you considered calling them to ask for more envelopes - they may be be able to send you more that way?

In addition, with my previous bank, I had built up over the years a "payment address book" which is all the details of people I pay money to with any regularity. Its really convenient as I can just select that person form the list and make a payment without needing to re-enter thei details each time. However, when moving to FD they were not able to port this over, so I had to set all these details up again.

No 'losing bank' will provide details of entries in your "payment address book" to the bank you are changing too..

Then with FD's version the "payment address book", I must admit its pretty easy to set up details to pay people etc, but there is no way to edit that list or delete anyone from it! So I no have this huge list of people I've paid, some of which was a one off and I can't delete it and some now have details which have changed and I can't edit it. (I realise this maybe isn't CS, but it is service of sorts).

This one I understand is a common complaint and I've read somewhere that FD have said they plan to change it. In the meantime, I believe if you call them, they can make any changes/deletions you require.

they have secure messaging, which is great, except they take usually 3 working days to reply! Cahoot would pretty much always reply within 24 hrs! This I am not impressed with.

Interesting, I'm sure their website says something like they aim to answer calls within 20 seconds and reply to messages within 24 hours..

There are more areas of dissactisfaction, but I can't remember any more right now. I realise none of these are particularly awful, but put them all together and add it to the claim that they are the bank with apparently "the best CS" - I'm afraid I just can't agree!

Anyway, rant over....I suppose the up-side is that at least they pay you £100 to leave if you aren't happy! Guess I'll be scooping that up then :-)

Sad to say, other banks tend to be much worse, hence FD offering the £100.. Cahoot certainly is these days which is a shame as it used to be ok before Santander ran it down.

Regards
Sunil