Praise First Direct

Kat78MFW

Had to ring First Direct today for the first time since pre-COVID. Having always been super impressed in the past by always getting through to a real human being straight away, I presumed that they would likely have gone down the automated answering service and being on hold like all other banks and utilities these days. To my surprise, my call was answered after a couple of rings by a customer service agent who could deal with my query straight away. Still top notch to deal with on the phone. Very impressed. 

TMSG

I've been with them for over two decades and I've been very happy with the phone service till ~2019 but after that this went downhill. It got as "bad" as having to wait for 30 to 40 minutes and for a while I only called them at 3am (not many banks offer 24/7 I think). Nowadays it's better but still not always as good as they were earlier, IMO.
OTOH, once you get a CS rep, they're almost always knowledgeable and efficient.

Albermarle

Kat78MFW said:

Had to ring First Direct today for the first time since pre-COVID. Having always been super impressed in the past by always getting through to a real human being straight away, I presumed that they would likely have gone down the automated answering service and being on hold like all other banks and utilities these days. To my surprise, my call was answered after a couple of rings by a customer service agent who could deal with my query straight away. Still top notch to deal with on the phone. Very impressed. 

On the other side, most products they offer, like savings accounts, insurance etc are very uncompetitive.