Amazingly Outstanding service from a Bank? HSBC

Ampalian

I went to talk to HSBC in Cheltenham about my business account because I was very unhappy with the service from NatWest. I have to say HSBC have been fantastic. I dislike banks in general but I got a real WOW!

A very pleasant and efficient two hour meeting with Mandy Ackrill after which I moved everything to HSBC. My personal account had been with Abbey for 17 years! Now it's all at HSBC.

Within a week of the first meeting I had all of my cheque books, paying in books, personal debit card, personal Gold Visa, business charge card and all accounts were live. A few days after that my merchant account was set up allowing my business to accept credit cards online or over the phone.

Every time I speak to them I get outstanding service.

A week ago I had to speak to them about fraud protection on the merchant account. I had VERY specific requirements. It meant that their technical people had to set up rules and filters for 250 countries individually and various other things that were unique to me. It was done in 24 hours.

Highly recommended.

Malcolm

Matt83UK_2

Have you tried calling HSBC on the telephone? Nasty experience, the tubbies are a billion miles away and when you ask for the telephone number of a business manager - stress!, they have no idea what you're on about, after going through security reset because the line was so bad (sure they route over VOIP) which took another ten minutes, "what was that sir? you want your business balance?", err. no, reclarify, "ah we dont know that information".

And even worse when you need some assistance with ePayments, if you're unfortunate enough to be routed to India again, the guys in that department are clueless.

If your using another gateway for merchant account and you're the type of person that experiences no problems then you should be okay, sort of like an ebuyer customer. But don't be fooled by the pleasant branch atmosphere and friendly of the business manager that after setting up a business account persuades you to transfer credit and current account (that got me too) as this has little reflect on the business as a whole.

Fatboy_NSS

Ampalian wrote:

It meant that their technical people had to set up rules and filters for 250 countries individually and various other things that were unique to me. It was done in 24 hours.

Wow, gotta say I'm impressed with the international scope of your business, as there are fewer than 200 countries on our planet. Which other planets are you doing business with?

PinkPig

193 countries, assuming you take Taiwan as being a country rather than a province of China. 191 are members of the UN. This is the count of countries in a political rather than sporting sense - for example the United Kingdom is counted as a single country, not England or Wales or Scotland or Northern Ireland.

Regardless of this interplanetery buisness, I imagine that the point is that, as you might expect from a bank, they care a lot about buisness customers, and rather less about an individual without all that much money. Sad but true.

Savvy_Sue

The branch of HSBC nearest to my work also offers very good customer service - when you can get to the front of the queue! There's only one cashier and a bank of machines, plus one other person available to talk to people. I usually manage to generate a problem, but they've always been willing to sort it out, which is refreshing! Examples:

We have a cheque cashing facility with them because we have a postal account with another bank. I managed to set the mandate up at the 'wrong' branch, but they offered to try to get the mandate faxed through to them from the 'other' branch, and succeeded.

I arrived after the counter service had closed with a large amount of notes to pay in, and they allowed me to do it via the machine, even though I didn't have one of the cards their own customers are given - used one of the branch's own for me.

They regularly mis-file our mandate under the name of our bank rather than the company name, so it can't be found, but they recognise me and know where to look now!

Oh, and they charge non-HSBC customers £5 for counter transactions between 11 am and 2 pm, but the cashier said this doesn't apply to us because we do have an arrangement. She said "It's a grey area", but she's come down on the white side!

So nice people - whether I'd trust them with my own money is another matter!

cougar_3

Wouldn't you prefer to use First Direct - they're a branch of HSBC meaning you can still use the branch whilst taking advantage of better rates?