MSE News: Barclays bottom of MSE customer service table, as First Direct is rated top 17 February 2017 at 11:43AM in Budgeting & bank accounts 35 replies 7K views

Legacy_user

First Direct has once again been crowned king of customer service in MoneySavingExpert.com's biannual banking poll...

Read the full story:
'Barclays bottom of MSE customer service league, as First Direct retains top spot'

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datlex

I have a Barclays account and always found their customer service both in branch and on the phone to be very good. So am surprised that they have come last. I am surprised that Smile is as high as it is to be honest. Their customer service is minimal to be perfectly honest.

Shakin_Steve

Always found Barclays to be very willing to help. But, I suppose, customer service only comes into it's own when things go wrong, and we have had a pretty uneventful relationship with them.

spook

As a smile customer I'm surprised to see them still score so highly. Their new-but-worse-than-the-old internet banking update, along with long phone queues, have really put me off them lately.

Pincher

At least Barclays still has a branch near me. HSBC is about to close their nearest branch, so if I wanted to pay in a cheque to First Direct, or HSBC Premier, I have further to go.

eskbanker

Shock horror, First Direct rated top again, who'd have imagined that!

And the lack of value of these polls is, as always, emphasised by all the 'bad bank is good for me'/'good bank is bad for me' posts that just reinforce how subjective and ultimately pointless exercises like this are....

ColdIron

I find Barclays service is generally OK but they do seem to use offshore call centres more than most which can be a bit hit and miss

jon81uk

Pincher wrote: »

At least Barclays still has a branch near me. HSBC is about to close their nearest branch, so if I wanted to pay in a cheque to First Direct, or HSBC Premier, I have further to go.

You can pay in cheques to First Direct at a post office instead if thats easier (use a HSBC envelope at the Post Office) or I think you can still post cheques to FD.

JuicyJesus

eskbanker wrote: »

Shock horror, First Direct rated top again, who'd have imagined that!

And the lack of value of these polls is, as always, emphasised by all the 'bad bank is good for me'/'good bank is bad for me' posts that just reinforce how subjective and ultimately pointless exercises like this are....

There's a pretty clear trend though. First Direct, Nationwide and the Co-op are consistently rated far more highly than the average of 57% great, HSBC and Barclays lower (HSBC especially recently).


It's the middle ground, the NatWest/Santander/Lloyds of the world where things are more mixed and these things become more "much of a muchness" simply because of the vast breadth of experience. Note that the ones near the top are the ones with fewer customers (FD and Co-op are tiny relative to the big four, and FD is notoriously choosy if not actively elitist, while Nationwide is big but not *that* big in the scheme of things) while the mass market ones are all hovering somewhere around 50%.


This isn't a full explanation, since there's other factors. To put it mildly your average FD customer is going to have a better credit rating and be better financially disposed because the bank is so choosy and there's so few of them, while the average Barclays or HSBC customer could come from any walk of life, get into trouble and be angry at the bank as a result. Lloyds and Halifax (LBG) in particular illustrate this perfectly - they're the biggest banking group in the table, absolutely massive with a huge branch network and customer reach... and they're slap bang in the middle of it!

PeacefulWaters

JuicyJesus wrote: »

There's a pretty clear trend though. First Direct, Nationwide and the Co-op are consistently rated far more highly than the average of 57% great, HSBC and Barclays lower (HSBC especially recently).


It's the middle ground, the NatWest/Santander/Lloyds of the world where things are more mixed and these things become more "much of a muchness" simply because of the vast breadth of experience. Note that the ones near the top are the ones with fewer customers (FD and Co-op are tiny relative to the big four, and FD is notoriously choosy if not actively elitist, while Nationwide is big but not *that* big in the scheme of things) while the mass market ones are all hovering somewhere around 50%.


This isn't a full explanation, since there's other factors. To put it mildly your average FD customer is going to have a better credit rating and be better financially disposed because the bank is so choosy and there's so few of them, while the average Barclays or HSBC customer could come from any walk of life, get into trouble and be angry at the bank as a result. Lloyds and Halifax (LBG) in particular illustrate this perfectly - they're the biggest banking group in the table, absolutey massive with a huge branch network and customer reach... and they're slap bang in the middle of it!

I'd have to say that LBG aim to be as average as possible and have achieved that ambition.

JuicyJesus

PeacefulWaters wrote: »

I'd have to say that LBG aim to be as average as possible and have achieved that ambition.

To be honest in Halifax's case advertising with bloody Hanna-Barbera cartoons suggests that average is putting it a bit high...