Customer Service for Banks (e.g. Cynergy)

worslesr

I think need to look harder at customer service and ease of use before recommending a banking/saving provider.

I recently set up an ISA with Cynergy, good rate but very poor service.

• One two occasions firstly 40 minutes then 30 minutes for them to answer the phone. 
• Offshore staff struggled to understand me (Northerner) and I struggled to understand them (Probably Indian). 
• Struggled to setup online banking because their setup process is so onerous as to be near impossible. I know online banking needs to be secure but their process is ridiculous, even to me, an ex IT systems manager.

Setup involves temporary passwords, two item registration process via a separate phone app. Passwords that contain many characters that can be easily confused (1, l and I, 0 and O). An app that cant be switched away from without it losing all input information. Then finally need to scan screen QR Codes and select an icon to further remember. Took me over 2 days to get logged on and I wont be doing it again any time soon. 

Perhaps grade online access and customer service Red/Amber/Green?

friolento

Opinions on CS are very personal and vary widely, depending on lots of factors, such as the nature of your inquiry/problem, your mood and the mood of the CS person, language abilities / preferences, quality of phone line, wait times, online / app likes / dislikes, and so forth. Your 'green' experience might be somebody else's 'red'. Even your own experience might be 'green' for one interaction and 'red' on another.

As to my experience with Cynergy: their digital presence isn't the most modern and some people are struggling with their unusual authentication approach but that seems a price worth paying as they often have good products.

I have accounts with numerous banks and building societies, all have good and not so good points. The only ones I won't touch are companies who don't offer FSCS, products with over-complicated T&Cs, and I also won't touch the Post Office (nothing to do with the subpostmaster scandal; just terrible systems and CS).

beefturnmail

Can echo how awful Cynergy are - tried to open an easy access account with them and the registration process was so onerous I gave up and opened an account elsewhere with a rate 0.08% less - just wasn't worth the hassle

EthicsGradient

Judging customer service is an extremely subjective process, unless you can approach it methodically with hundreds of test users (which, in the case of banking/saving, is not easy - you need the money to actually carry out the process), and amalgamate good, bad and indifferent experiences. It's something that "Which?" might approach, but not really feasible for other organizations. Unless the thread starter is suggesting they want to found such an organization?

xylophone

Relative opened ISA with Cynergy several days ago but his experience was even more dire than worslesr"s - he wants a digipass which can only be obtained by phone  which nobody ever answers.....

A._Badger

beefturnmail said:

Can echo how awful Cynergy are - tried to open an easy access account with them and the registration process was so onerous I gave up and opened an account elsewhere with a rate 0.08% less - just wasn't worth the hassle

Likewise. I tried for half an hour last night and in the end gave up in disgust. All I wanted to do was open an easy access account but their Byzantine authentication procedure was so buggy and complex that in the end I stopped trying, went elsewhere and had an EA account with another major online supplier (Kent Reliance) set up within minutes. I shan't be trying Cynergy again and it's joined the small list of online banks that make it too onerous to register...