MSE News: First Direct comes top, while Barclays gets the wooden spoon...

Former_MSE_Helen

First Direct has secured the top spot for the eighth consecutive year with over 90% of its customers rating it 'great'...

Read the full story:

First Direct comes top, while Barclays gets the wooden spoon in MSE's latest banking service index




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dr_adidas01

MSE_Helen wrote: »

First Direct has secured the top spot for the eighth consecutive year with over 90% of its customers rating it 'great'...

Read the full story:

First Direct comes top, while Barclays gets the wooden spoon in MSE's latest banking service index




Click reply below to discuss. If you haven’t already, join the forum to reply. If you aren’t sure how it all works, read our New to Forum? Intro Guide.

Of course First Direct came top in your own MSE survey, you get paid to promote their products so its hardly an unbiased poll really.

I've found from my own experience Barclays are better than First Direct.

Oblivion

What I find odd is that First Direct come top but HSBC who, as I understand it 'own' First Direct, only come 12th. It seems the youngster could teach the parent a thing or two.

smifffy1989

I must be the only person who has actually left First Direct.

I find it really annoying that you cannot name savings accounts. I use the piggy bank method to manage my finances and when you have a few savings accounts it can be hard to keep track of which one is which!

I made the suggestion to them a year ago.

Halifax for me now!

MABLE

Tried them yearS ago (1993) and would never go back. All i wanted from them was a small overdraft and the advisor I spoke to wanted to go through my bank statements questioning every thing. In the end I just put the phone down and closed the account.

Mr_Goodkat

dr_adidas01 wrote: »

Of course First Direct came top in your own MSE survey, you get paid to promote their products so its hardly an unbiased poll really.

I've found from my own experience Barclays are better than First Direct.

Are you seriously suggesting that the poll conducted is fixed to make First Direct appear better than it is so that MSE will then generate more money through referrals?


I believe the survey to be a fair reflection of peoples experiences!


I use First Direct as my 'main account' in that it takes my salary credit each month but I do have 30+ current accounts for various reasons however I would rate the service I have received from First Direct as excellent. Saying that I have not received terrible service from any bank.


For pure service I would do everything with First Direct but other than the 6% regular saver and a decent ISA rate (until rates drop in October) they don't have very good products hence my 30+ current accounts and a large number of credit cards.


Generally I don't need to interface with customer service at banks as the vast majority of my banking is done online.


In my experience Barclays offer both poor service and poor products!

Mr_Goodkat

Oblivion wrote: »

What I find odd is that First Direct come top but HSBC who, as I understand it 'own' First Direct, only come 12th. It seems the youngster could teach the parent a thing or two.

Although owned by HSBC, First Direct and HSBC are very different organisations and cultures. As such the service and experience you receive are very different.


First Direct are a UK personal retail bank and do try to focus on providing excellent customer service to win and retain market share.


HSBC are a global financial institution and UK personal banking only plays a small part in their overall business.


Although a 'Customer Service Survey' Products are probably playing an important part of peoples perception. It is no surprise that Barclays, HSBC, RBS and Nat West are all near the bottom when you consider their current product set.


Take Santander for example I am sure their 'customer service' has improved but their rise in satisfaction is probably more due to paying people 3% on up to £20k and cash back on both certain house hold bills and credit card transactions.

pollypenny

I want a UK based call centre with accents I can understand. At present we have that with HSBC, but only because we have a Premier Account for its travel,insurance.

We will soon be transferring our main current account to Nationwide,, where we'll gents decent package, with interest .

The appeal of First Direct is that they offer Uk call centres on all accounts, in spite of poor interest rates.

Archi_Bald

Mr_Goodkat wrote: »

Take Santander for example I am sure their 'customer service' has improved but their rise in satisfaction is probably more due to paying people 3% on up to £20k and cash back on both certain house hold bills and credit card transactions.

I would agree with that conclusion. It just shows that people, in the main, care a lot more about money in their pocket rather than some airy-fairy "service" that everyone has their own interpretation for.

As to why FD always comes tops in surveys: I have my own explanation for this, and it isn't that FD pay referral money. It's much more likely down to a large degree to who is voting. No doubt there are some real customers amongst the many voters.

epm-84

smifffy1989 wrote: »

I must be the only person who has actually left First Direct.

I find it really annoying that you cannot name savings accounts. I use the piggy bank method to manage my finances and when you have a few savings accounts it can be hard to keep track of which one is which!

I made the suggestion to them a year ago.

Halifax for me now!

I recently looked at transferring my ISA to First Direct because of the higher interest rate. However, to do that you need a First Direct current account first. I thought not a problem, my current account is with Natwest and their staff are becoming too salesy. After going through numerous hoops to get an account open with First Direct (not including transferring my current account) they announce the interest rate on the ISA will drop significantly from October. It was actually a good job it took First Direct a whole month to send me an ISA transfer request form and then sent two at once! I also don't get why to transfer an ISA to First Direct you have to do it using paper forms but to transfer a current account to First Direct you can't do it using paper/online forms and have to do it over the phone.

I also found the 'secure messaging' feature on First Direct online banking useless. It seems to send you a generic response based on what terms you say in your message and never answers the question you originally asked.

epm-84

Mr_Goodkat wrote: »

Take Santander for example I am sure their 'customer service' has improved but their rise in satisfaction is probably more due to paying people 3% on up to £20k and cash back on both certain house hold bills and credit card transactions.

Most of the time nothing goes wrong when people are using bank accounts and so the difference between a smiling polite member of staff in the branch and someone who's unhappy and stressed can make all the difference.

While Natwest and RBS perform badly in the survey I can't think of any other occasions when banks have said - our system went wrong and customers might have been affected by it so we're opening our branches later in to the evening and more branches on Saturday so the affected customers will find it easier to come in and speak to us face-to-face.