Embarrassed with complaint compensation with HSBC Premier

philip1427

Hi guys,

I thought I would share my experiences of the customer care given by my new bank HSBC. I switched to their Premier account after being enticed by their 'luxury night away' switch deal.

I had to call the bank a couple of weeks ago as it seemed that they had dipped my current account twice to pay my credit card off in full. I rang them to ask if they could do a balance transfer back into my current account. The customer assistant was not too helpful and was actually quite rude on the phone. He blamed this error on me and said it would be impossible to do a balance transfer and I would just have to spend the positive balance on my card! So with much back and forth he finally agreed to do a BT.

The plot thickens when I received a letter saying my direct debit had been cancelled on my authority! So I had to get back on the phone again to get it reinstated. I thought this would be a simple request but oh no I was met be another unhelpful assistant.

So by this stage I was thoroughly peeved off so I wrote a letter of complaint summarising what I have said above. I mentioned in my complaint I was drawn to the supposedly direct line to good customer service when I decided to switch and I was willing to take a small decrease on interest rates on my savings to have this enhanced level of service. I abhor having to ring and talk to robot for the first 15 mins then hold on the line for a further 20!

Anyways.... so I received I a nice phone call from a girl at the complaints team. She was very pleasant and was thoroughly embarrassed as she had listened to my calls to the bank about this issue. She said she'll feedback to the staff members responsible and she also offered a £100 bank credit for my inconvenience. I have to say I was thoroughly embarrassed at being offered the money. It felt very tokenistic. And I doubt HSBC's poor customer service will improve.

Has anyone else had this experience with HSBC? Have you received bad customer care then they try to make things sweet by firing some money at you? Is this the normal level of compensation offered by this bank?

I can't wait to hear your thoughts

Regards
P

NewToTheUkAgain

I think £100 is quite reasonable.

philip1427

Yes in terms of money I think it’s very reasonable! Even a bit unnecessary. It’s seems to me that they’re throwing money at a systematic problem.

masonic

This is a good offer. I'd happily endure such inconveniences for a £100 at the end.

jonesMUFCforever

The only reason why they would dip into your account is that you did not pay on time - so £100 compensation for your error seems very generous.

eskbanker

philip1427 wrote: »

Yes in terms of money I think it’s very reasonable! Even a bit unnecessary. It’s seems to me that they’re throwing money at a systematic problem.

It seems to me that the problems you experienced were caused by HSBC staff rather than being a systematic problem as such?

Any business employing human beings will find that they're not perfect and make mistakes - you may be sceptical about the extent of the internal follow-up but it would surprise me if the individuals concerned weren't given some 'education' as to the effect of their actions and attitude and some 'encouragement' to get it right next time.

Offering a modest goodwill gesture in recognition of inconvenience, etc, generally makes customers feel that their complaints were taken seriously - you're never going to be able to validate exactly what happened internally as well so what would you have considered to be a suitable response from HSBC?

Mr.Generous

I agree with the OP though, £100 is excellent but why do businesses do a poor job, employ idiots, do no training then throw money at complaints.

I had something very similar with an energy company where the customer service provider couldn't explain why DD was going up when I was in credit and paying too much, in the end she just hung up. After a complaint with the same sort of scenario cust services just offered me money.


Brother had 2 complaints re Nat West who also just offered cash rather than trying to fix the issue. No wonder people complain.

MisterMotivated

philip1427 wrote: »

She...also offered a £100 bank credit for my inconvenience. I have to say I was thoroughly embarrassed at being offered the money. It felt very tokenistic. And I doubt HSBC's poor customer service will improve.

It's not uncommon for banks to throw money at complaints such as yours. I hate to say it but, I suspect a lot of it stems from the compensation culture we've adopted. You can read plenty of posts on here about how people want (nay, expect) to be reimbursed for the cost of their time on a Saturday afternoon to make a phone call, or for the interest they lost when £14 was erroneously debited from their account for 3 days before being replaced. Not to mention the mental anguish caused by the whole situation - that definitely deserves financial compensation. I especially like the thread titles along the lines of "My bank sent a letter that addressed me as Mrs rather than Miss; how much compensation should I be looking for?"

That's not to say people who suffer actual financial losses as a result of these errors shouldn't be reimbursed, but when it comes to claiming for a phone call (with people probably calling from a mobile with unlimited calls), it starts getting a bit ridiculous.

I hope you're wrong about things not improving, but providing "feedback" to staff after they've messed up is probably not the most efficient means of effecting change.

masonic

Mr.Generous wrote: »

I agree with the OP though, £100 is excellent but why do businesses do a poor job, employ idiots, do no training then throw money at complaints.

Well the simplest explanation is because it is cheaper to bung the odd customer £100 than to invest in ensuring all of their staff are performing at a high level.

YorkshireBoy

It's not clear (to me) the reason for the 'double-dip'.

Were there two FP instructions initiated by yourself?...perhaps future dated? (possible?)
Or maybe they called the full balance DD twice on the same day? (unlikely?)
Or possibly you made a manual payment too close to the DD collection date, meaning they couldn't cancel the DD in time? (likely?)


As to them throwing compensation/goodwill money at customers, Lloyds, Halifax and BoS have been doing that for years...without people paying a premium for their everyday banking!

bigadaj

I've got the advance account from being paid to switch and retained for the regular saver. I then applied for a credit card last year, £25 incentive but HSBC screwed up my application and then ignored me. I raised a complaint and they freely offered £100 so maybe it's the default amount for them for poor customer service, just seems a needlessly expensive approach but happy to take their money.