MSE News: Santander customer data still going astray

chippychappy

A&L/Santander 'lost' my wife's ISA transfer forms last year and, to date, have never confirmed whether they found the forms or not.

A recent visit to our local high street branch, to discuss relocation of current (online A&L) accounts, to Santander, was greeted with complete ignorance. A wait beneath their 'Welcome' sign, for three minutes and, despite there being at least five staff present, including the manager and only one other customer in the branch, I was ignored. By the time a member of staff eventually condescended to speak to me, I had already decided to transfer the accounts to First Direct.

It seems they have 'lost the plot', unless, of course, their staff are actually being trained by First Direct ! ! !

ses6jwg

cactusdust wrote: »

I shall close my dormant account ASAP then.. though of course they have to order me a new debit card for security purposes before I can close it. How amusing.

This is incorrect - I work in a Branch who told you this, because they are wrong!

To close a dormant account with a balance under £500 all we need is either a statement from that account or a piece of photo ID such as a driving licence or passport.

Dave_ja_vu

What a load of Crap - What Santander ? Yes I think we all agree with you there. Nice to see the professional way you speak to your companies customers, thats why Santander customer service is right at the bottom of the tables, you are a great advert for anybody with any doubts leaving this bank, you heard it from the horses mouth.

ses6jwg

Thank goodness for the edit button ah, just think the boss may read this blog to get customer feedback.

cactusdust

ses6jwg wrote: »

This is incorrect - I work in a Branch who told you this, because they are wrong!

To close a dormant account with a balance under £500 all we need is either a statement from that account or a piece of photo ID such as a driving licence or passport.

Okay. It may have been because it was an under 18s account when I tried to close it before.

Thanks.

zppp

Dave_ja_vu wrote: »

What a load of Crap - What Santander ? Yes I think we all agree with you there. Nice to see the professional way you speak to your companies customers, thats why Santander customer service is right at the bottom of the tables, you are a great advert for anybody with any doubts leaving this bank, you heard it from the horses mouth.

In an unofficial capacity.

ses6jwg

Dave_ja_vu wrote: »

What a load of Crap - What Santander ? Yes I think we all agree with you there. Nice to see the professional way you speak to your companies customers, thats why Santander customer service is right at the bottom of the tables, you are a great advert for anybody with any doubts leaving this bank, you heard it from the horses mouth.

Apoologies if you took that the wrong way but my disbelief was not aimed at the poster but rather at the member of staff who told them that.

I work in a branch that over the past 12 month has consistently scored above 90% in all customer service surveys.

I know first hand how the branches differ service wise - we have a sister branch 100 yards up the road who scored 52% in their last survey.

I probably spend at least 2-3 hours per week dealing with complaints from customers who have suffered misinformation, ignorance and on occasion downright abuse from call centre staff so I know first hand what can and does happen.

We used to be an A&L branch, before the migration, you put a customer on the phone and the advisors were brilliant and query would be solved, done dusted.

Now we are Santander it's a case of you either get a helpful person (usually in the ex A&L call centre in Bootle or Leicester) or a moron.

Heyman_2

What a shambolic outfit they really are - you'd have to be insane to let these clueless jokers look after your money!

Loughton_Monkey

ses6jwg wrote: »

.....I probably spend at least 2-3 hours per week dealing with complaints from customers who have suffered misinformation, ignorance and on occasion downright abuse from call centre staff so I know first hand what can and does happen.

We used to be an A&L branch, before the migration, you put a customer on the phone and the advisors were brilliant and query would be solved, done dusted....

As an outsider, I would suggest that Santander has a 'long haul' ahead of it. The 'system and procedures' are clearly broken (possibly not helped by the migrations) and I wonder if they have fallen into the classic 'trap'. That big trap is to try and cover it up by giving the demoralised staff 'Customer Service Training'. Big Mistake. Because staff then show a very short 'smile' before getting even more demoralised as their back office systems simply don't support what they are doing with the customer. This is when the staff tend to throw in the towel (understandably).

The correct (and in my view only) way to deal with this is to give staff reasonable 'technical' training and moral support, while going hell-for-leather to get really good simple procedures. Robust. Reliable. Trustworthy. Only then is pure 'Customer Service' training valuable. Front end staff can perform miracles - but only if their back up (computer systems, technical knowledge, robust procedures) is reliable.

So where is it all going wrong?

tony_from_suffolk

The staff in our local Santander branch seem fine & helpful but over the last month or so I've been trying to get tax information regarding a now-defunct savings account from their telephone call centre - apparently they've now sent me the information twice (it takes ten working days before they can issue the information apparently) & both times it's been lost in the post. Apparently.

I've tried to get the basic information by 'phone but their system can't provide it. I've tried to complain by 'phone & both times they've kept me waiting for ages then hung up on me. They're a complete joke and I'll be moving away from them as rapidly as possible!

jeanmin

We have had a savings account for 6 months with no problems. Used it with no problem until now, they have decided to freeze the account as they want our date of birth and nationality and country of residence. This info was given on opening the account on the internet. They will not let you carry on with the registration if everything is not filled in on line so why all of a sudden do they need this info again? We have now closed the account and put the money elsewhere. The call centre was totally useless.