Disgusting Service From Yorkshire BS

nilrem_2

webmasterpolo wrote: »

As someone said you don't just turn at your doctors without an appointment and expect to be seen.

Not quite the same thing is it! For many years people have been able to walk into a bank and open an account without making an appointment and in a lot of cases one still can.

Personally I also deal online to avoid all this rubbish. (online is self directed so they feel safer that you can't complain later).

Opening accounts on-line is not available to everyone and in some cases things don't go as smoothly as one wishes, I have spent ages opening on-line accounts only to be told at the end that a form would be sent for me to fill in and open the account!
It varies from bank to bank some are simple to open on-line others offer a very frustrating experience.

le_loup

Oh boy!
I do have sympathy but ... we close at 12:00 am, on a Saturday, the busiest day of the week!
The world has moved on, but not the financial world it seems.

bigadaj

Can't see the problem, if something is important to you you make an appointment, if not then pop in on the off chance, if it works then fine, if they're busy try again at another time or go elsewhere.

The real opprobrium should be aimed at the government for the level of savings rates, it was bad a few months ago when you could get 3% or so, now with funding for lending you can barely get 2%.

This seems to be forcing many people into unwise moves, cautious savers being pushed into equities for income, house buyers subsidised to buy over priced housing, and the overall result of extending stagnation in the wider economy for years to come.

opinions4u

le_loup wrote: »

Oh boy!
I do have sympathy but ... we close at 12:00 am, on a Saturday, the busiest day of the week!
The world has moved on, but not the financial world it seems.

It's a very good point.

And I gave up trying to shift that three hour time slot to between 10am to 1pm as those who could approve it refused. I never bothered trying to exend hours as I'd have got no extra resource to cover it.

It still baffles me that so any banks don't open on Saturday at all.

pqrdef

webmasterpolo wrote: »

As someone said you don't just turn at your doctors without an appointment and expect to be seen.

I don't want to be seen, I want to perform a simple transaction. I can open a Halifax Online Saver in about 40 seconds. 4 simple questions.

Weirdly, I've never had any trouble becoming a new customer of an institution I haven't dealt with before. Then, they smooth the path. They do "online ID checks", which prove nothing. They check that I exist, but they've got no idea whether I'm me or somebody else pretending to be me.

Often it's easier for a new customer to get a credit card than for an existing customer to get a savings account.

There has been a huge amount of bank bashing in the past few years

Good. Because their cultural attitude to customers stinks.

Part of this regulation means staff need to ask loads of questions to open an account because they are taking on a responsibility to defend any possible future complaint that the account wasn't suitable, even though it's not advised.

They're more likely to try to sell me something unsuitable.

For example if you wanted a 5 year fixed rate bond, if they don't check you have sufficient instant access money and you complain in 3 years that you can't access this money, they are terrified they will lose the complaint.

So why not design better products, instead of just covering their !!!!!!? It's obvious that customers can't see the future. Ensuring that they lose their complaints when you leave them in the lurch isn't the answer. Meeting their needs is the answer. Then they don't complain.

Personally I also deal online to avoid all this rubbish.

So do they want footfall or not? What are branches for? I only go to a branch at the bank's insistence, when there's no other way. But in the branch the attitude of staff is, they're too busy to be arsed with customers, why can't we go away and do it all online or something.

I don't want to know the bank's problems, they're for the bank to sort out and solve. Their first essential for a customer service organisation when dealing with a customer is to remember that their problems aren't his, he's got his own. They're supposed to be part of the solution, not add to his problems.

webmasterpolo

pqrdef wrote: »

I don't want to be seen, I want to perform a simple transaction. I can open a Halifax Online Saver in about 40 seconds. 4 simple questions.

Opening an account isn't a simple transaction, as I've said the regulation and potential liability make this a much more complex task than it was even 1 year ago.

pqrdef wrote: »

Weirdly, I've never had any trouble becoming a new customer of an institution I haven't dealt with before.

Yes that is weird, as new customer would be starting from scratch without even the most basic information plus as you say require ID checking, while an existing customer would already have ID on file and their basic details too.

pqrdef wrote: »

Good. Because their cultural attitude to customers stinks.

This is the result, it was always going to be this way. The more regulation the higher cost of doing business and time taken to do business, ultimately all these costs are borne by the consumer at the end. The bank is a business afterall and isn't answerable to the customer (no matter how much you want it to be), only the share holder. Yes I know the tax payer is a major shareholder of a lot of banks, but as a shareholder you want ROI and if that means customer service can be average and you get a higher ROI then that's the bottom line.

pqrdef wrote: »

They're more likely to try to sell me something unsuitable.

Hence the appointment to make their case bullet proof so you can't say it was unsuitable later as they have piles of evidence to prove otherwise.

pqrdef wrote: »

So why not design better products, instead of just covering their !!!!!!? It's obvious that customers can't see the future. Ensuring that they lose their complaints when you leave them in the lurch isn't the answer. Meeting their needs is the answer. Then they don't complain.

The fixed rate bond in my example is one of the most widely understood and popular types of account. A lot of people prefer to give up access to some of their money in exchange for a higher rate of interest. The bank knows it can rely on having this money and is prepared to offer a higher rate to get than guarantee. It sounds crazy but you can bet your bottom dollar that under the current insane level of bank bashing a client wanting to withdraw from a fixed rate bond could complain and win if the bank couldn't prove they warned him and checked he has sufficient access funds for his needs and documented all this.

But hey, I don't work in a bank and that's just my 2p worth. I'm just saying how it is, we've made our bed now we have to lie in it.


-Web

innovate

webmasterpolo wrote: »

Opening an account isn't a simple transaction, as I've said the regulation and potential liability make this a much more complex task than it was even 1 year ago.

I have opened literally dozens of accounts since the turn of the millenium, apart from one single one (Nationwide Flexplus ISA, branch-only) all of them online. With perhaps one exception it felt like extremely simple transactions.

The exception was my HSBC current account which took an unbelievable length of time to get (though it wasn't complicated to fill in the application form). Luckily, I just wanted their regular saver, and I don't care too much about the current account apart from it being needed to feed the Reg Saver, which it has been doing fine for the last 11 months.

IMO, there is no real reason why opening an account in a branch needs to be any more complex than opening it on the Internet. Of course, however, the bank needs to ensure the customer isn't left with any false expectations based on what the bank clerk told the customer. This can take a lot of time, depending on the customer.

For accounts that can be opened on the internet (which seems to be the vast majority), there's no reason why you should need to go anywhere near a branch these days if all you want to do is open an account.