Nationwide Building Society Loyalty!

blue_max_3 · 12 May 2020 at 9:30PM

digalumps said:

A completely contrary position of course is that we should be glad Nationwide are reducing interest rates in these difficult times to make sure that they do not get into financial trouble, collapse and then make us all claim under the fscs scheme

Phew! Thought my remaining £1 was in jeopardy for a moment. Not sure pushing my cash out helps their situation though.

nhquine · 13 May 2020 at 3:04PM

Nationwide please fix your poor customer service

At the beginning of April, I applied to move my ISA from the Nationwide and as I write this five weeks later it is still there. The receiving bank 'The Coventry' requested the transfer the following day and have repeated their request every few days, thankfully they have also kept me updated of their retrieval efforts.

To date I have sent several secure email requests to the Nationwide, the first reply stated "We are experiencing high volumes of requests....." and the delays are because we are very busy... this is not surprising following their reduction to their interest rates. None of the replies show any empathy the amount is around £60k, a lot of money to me but it seems they are not taking my problem seriously.

I have now sent several emails making them aware of the issue, but instead of simply resolving it, they respond with a 'standard template' email reply instead of a solution. On the 9th May I received another delaying email stating "Thank you for contacting us about your complaint. We’ve noted this on your case, and your case handler will be in touch as soon as they can” ...So over a month later and we are back to square one!

I have been loyal to the Nationwide for over 20 years, and today they spend millions on advertising to attract potential customers, Some of that money would be better spent on staffing levels, because service is about making your customers feeling valued, ignore them and they'll go away.

Make things better and please show customers respect in both words and actions.

What has happened to the Nationwide!.

digalumps · 13 May 2020 at 3:07PM

No idea - it's almost like there was some sort of disease suddenly striking all their staff at once.

Albermarle · 13 May 2020 at 3:09PM

Big drop in interest rates so many customers moving away
Early April is in the middle of the 'ISA season'
Covid 19 means their offices are empty and nearly everybody working from home
Most ISA transfers are still paper based
Put the four together and you have a Perfect Storm /big admin delays.

badger09 · 13 May 2020 at 3:22PM

digalumps said:

No idea - it's almost like there was some sort of disease suddenly striking all their staff at once.

Not to mention irate customers bombarding them with multiple secure messages and emails demanding attention be given their particular issue.

epm-84 · 13 May 2020 at 6:21PM

digalumps said:

No idea - it's almost like there was some sort of disease suddenly striking all their staff at once.

So you'd think rather than hefty interest rate reductions, they would withdraw the highest interest rate saving products to new customers and leave any significant interest changes or new product launches, until they have the staff available to cope with the high demand that will cause. Some other banks and building societies have done that but not Nationwide.

margaretx9 · 13 May 2020 at 7:35PM

Everyone enjoying the Nationwide 'showing we care' ads - with the heavily pregnant woman and someone who sounds like a member of the Slater family on Eastenders. How much did they spend on those?
How about showing they care about your elderly mum by paying her more interest on her savings - just equivalent to what many banks are of course!

bowlhead99 · 13 May 2020 at 7:42PM

epm-84 said:

digalumps said:

No idea - it's almost like there was some sort of disease suddenly striking all their staff at once.

So you'd think rather than hefty interest rate reductions, they would withdraw the highest interest rate saving products to new customers and leave any significant interest changes or new product launches, until they have the staff available to cope with the high demand that will cause. Some other banks and building societies have done that but not Nationwide.

If you have a couple of billion pound a year interest bill and want to reduce it, the most immediate and effective way to do that is to reduce the variable rate interest paid to existing depositors - rather than simply withdrawing the highest rate saving products from sale to new customers, which would have an extremely limited effect on reducing the existing bill.

On all the interest rate moan threads we get people saying "you'd think the'd just do [x], why does the CEO and board of directors get paid big salaries for this shambles", but perhaps the complainants have never tried to manage a financial institution with a 200 billion pound balance sheet; the organisation is likely better leaving it to the professionals and remunerating them at market rate, rather than taking comments from people on a moneysaving forum.