Getting support from your bank

ChrisWood

I am 67 and a reasonably computer literate so I can use my on-line banking with Santander without much difficulty for most of my transactions. However, today I needed to get some informaiton about a debit from my account I was unsure of. Cutting a long story short I used the 'chat' and of course it was a 'bot'. It took me about 10 minutes of answering autmatically generated questions before I got to speak to someone with a heartbeat.
I am very concerned about the future. The banks seem to be putting up more and more hurdles, even on their on-line services. The local Santander bank has now cut its hours to 5 hours per day and I have no doubt it will eventually close. Maybe a few years down the road. I feel I have adapted but I am of an age where I remember all transaction were taken at the local branch and you interacted with people, not electronics. The change has been enormous. Young people have never experienced the 'face to face' interactions that used to be, so they probably are not aware of what has happened.
My concern is what will happen as people get older ? I fortunately still have all (or most of) my marbles - but what about in another 5 years, or maybe 10 ? What if I just cannot retain the ability to use my computer or phone ? Some time ago I was in the bank and an older lady was having a lot of difficulty grasping what had happened to a matter with her account. She was just not grasping it, and you could see she was getting frustrated and upset. The lady helping her was doing her best so fair do. She was telling her repeatedly what buttons she needed to press on the cash machine.
I don't think it will be possible to do this in another 5 or 10 years - there will not be the branches anymore. So how are banks and other institutions going to support older people who struggle with the technology. Someone who may be okay now may not be when they are in their 70's or 80's. And I think that will be a large proportion of people reaching older age. Alzheimers and just general cognotive loss as you get older will take its toll.
How are the banks and others going to support people with cognotive difficulty in handling the internet banking system ?  The tide is coming in with regard to this as people, like me who are young enough to have learned in their 40's and 50's (through necessity) but are approaching their twighlight years ?
 I fear for the future with regard to this.

Savvy_Sue

I can't really help much with this, except to say that in these chatbot conversations I start saying at an early stage "I need to talk to a person". It reduces the frustration levels slightly.

One problem is if there is no person available at that time (and I tend to be doing these things late at night). There's one bank which sends a message to a person, and they start asking me questions over chat, which of course I then don't see until I login the next day. Those conversations take quite a while ... 

I hope that eventually other banks will learn from First Direct. Their phone service is exemplary: in fact there are some things you HAVE to phone them for, you can't seem to do them any other way! But of course they have no branches. 

Muttleythefrog

The banks are moving to these hub operations aren't they... with some towns otherwise not having any banks and the post office clinging on for banks to do basic transactions. Ultimately society is changing and the way we bank and transact is too. Many of the concerns about people getting old and degenerate etc and being unable to manage their account electronically... well perhaps there may be even more problems doing such in person in branch which includes travel for one. The newer generations of old people will have lived life during computerisation. 

Ultimately if people are unable to handle their affairs such as banking then someone will have to take the reins in legal sense.

But bank closures are a problem for a fair few reasons... not least that post offices also are disappearing or lacking staffing and inefficient.

Online support... yes can be very unresponsive and frustrating. Telephone.. well... like many on these boards I claim disability and sickness benefits and it's common to wait the best part of an hour to speak to someone about those... banks probably better but I would hope for something like suspected fraud there'd be 24 hour and rapid access to phone contact.

Bradden

With advances in generative AI call centre staff will be able to support customers much more efficiently and we will all have our own personal digital assistants.. If anything the advances in tech will make like easier as we get older.. hopefully!

elsien

Power of attorney is one of the solutions if the reason is changes in the persons cognitive ability  rather than banks been flipping awkward. Or just when the bank is difficult. 

I hate webchat bots so I don’t bother with asking questions. I just  type “speak to human“ repeatedly until they get fed up and put me through.

p00hsticks

elsien said:

Power of attorney is one of the solutions if the reason is changes in the persons cognitive ability  rather than banks been flipping awkward. Or just when the bank is difficult. 

 This is the solution my mother and I have just arrived at following the death of my father. 

Her cognitive ability is OK, but her visual impairment prevents her using online banking, her hearing loss prevents her using  telephone banking, and her mobility issues mean she is unable to get into a branch (or post office). 

When you get to that stage, the only thing you can really do is get someone you trust to act for you. 

comeandgo

I hope things get easier as technology progresses.  My iPad uses my fingerprint, my husbands phone has face recognition, no need to punch in any numbers.  The branches are closing as not enough people are using them.  

Newcad

elsien said:

 I just  type “speak to human“ repeatedly until they get fed up and put me through.

On many such systems the single word - Agent - is what you should type in.

The bot will then shortcut it's normal questions and only ask what it actually needs to before passing that information on to the support agent/person.