A J Bell Customer Service

valiant24

I asked this a few months ago:

I find them almost impossible to contact now.   Some emails I sent last month took 3 weeks to be replied to.  A question I emailed  about a transfer received a reply a month and a day later!

Now I am on the phone trying to ask again about the same transfer.   32 minutes and counting so far.

They really seem to have lost it in recent months.  Since they floated in fact.  Maybe the owners feel they don't have to bother any more?

Is it just me, then?

pphillips

Maybe you just phone them at the wrong time, whenever I have phoned them I got through almost immediately.

valiant24

Customer Service rather than Dealing Desk?  When did you last try?

wmb194

In the past year AJ Bell has taken on lots of new customers so this could have something to do with any perceived degradation in service. Then again, the issue could just be to do with its transfer team.
https://www.investegate.co.uk/aj-bell-plc--ajb-/rns/trading-update/202103290700097195T/
"In its 2020 annual results announced on 3 December 2020, the Company highlighted the high levels of new customers and record levels of dealing activity by D2C customers in the year ended 30 September 2020. The Company has continued to see strong customer acquisition in the first half of the current financial year and dealing activity by D2C customers has remained at elevated levels throughout."

Thrugelmir

Is the Easter Holidays still in many places. Coupled with WFH.  Plenty of challenges. No company has endless amounts of people sitting around doing nothing. 

Albermarle

In the past year AJ Bell has taken on lots of new customers 

Maybe it is all those DB transfer insistent clients , that nobody else wants ?

valiant24

Thrugelmir said:

Is the Easter Holidays still in many places. Coupled with WFH.  Plenty of challenges. No company has endless amounts of people sitting around doing nothing. 

It's been like this since January for me.  Also I don't understand why every company on the planet is now citing WFH as a reason for "unprecedented delays" and generally shoddy service.  WFH makes everyone more productive.  I know this because I read it in The Guardian!

underground99

I'm quite happy with them but must admit I've sent them a couple of secure messages in last couple of months which took a while to reply - one was re the proceeds of a sale transaction that had the wrong value due to a crazy exchange rate, took about a week to fix and update my available funds; and I can't remember the other one but it wasn't particularly time critical.  Both got resolved without them actually replying to my message, but I could see the things had been fixed.

I have quite a lot of holdings but generally don't need much in the way of customer service so don't really need to ask them stuff. The system seems to work ok. Generally the only time I need to call them is calling the dealing desk, where calls are always answered pretty quick.  Transfers of cash or stocks have reached them ok in reasonable timeframes.

[Deleted User]

Not been with them long but I've been impressed with AJ Bell.

Service everywhere has suffered in the last 12 months. We may by fated to remember pre-2020 as a golden age.

Prism

valiant24 said:

Thrugelmir said:

Is the Easter Holidays still in many places. Coupled with WFH.  Plenty of challenges. No company has endless amounts of people sitting around doing nothing. 

It's been like this since January for me.  Also I don't understand why every company on the planet is now citing WFH as a reason for "unprecedented delays" and generally shoddy service.  WFH makes everyone more productive.  I know this because I read it in The Guardian!

Its mainly the call centres that have struggled. They tend to use big office based contact center systems that can't be easily reconfigured to work from home. All those messages you get that say 'this call may be recorded' means that the calls have to pass through proprietary kit and software which often doesn't work from home. 

csgohan4

no issues with AJB, they reply to secure messages within 48 hours

I transferred my LISA from EQI to them recently.