HSBC and ways to complain online - are they chopping customers' hands?

Ulrich

Hi All,

I had no need to contact HSBC for some time but had to do so last week.
It turned out the only way to make a complaint online is via their chat, which involves a live agent that might or might not register your complaint.
On top of that I don't know how they want me to provide supporting documents as their chat does not offer file upload feature.
Ended up making a complaint via Resolver about HSBC severely restricting customers' options to make complaints online and got a quick final response.

They admit "streamlining" process of raising complaints by getting rid of email option and using the chat instead.
The tricky thing is they state that their "chat service is not designed for messages to be exchanged immediately, it sends a notification once an agent has replied" but also "a complaint was unable to be raised as you would have needed to remain online, to be provided with the case reference", which is kind of 2 opposite things. They close a chat for inactivity 5 minutes after an agent sent you a message and if you did not respond within that timeframe, it's a new chat - pretty horrible design to my taste as it wastes a lot of time.

Basically, my point is that by getting rid of email and online form for making complaints HSBC made it much harder for their clients to raise a complain online.
The phone, branch and letter options are much less convenient, easy and sometimes not even fit for purpose.

I know nowadays every institution slashes their costs and the easiest one is to save on customer service.
However, I think they went too far in doing that.
Does anyone have experience in using Financial Ombudsman for something like that?

Eyeful

1. If any bank makes it harder to make a complaint, then the chances are that many will give up.
The bank can then claim that the number of complaints have gone down & therefore their service must have improved.

2. If they can also reduce costs, the bosses get more money as they have improved efficiency. Now a days its all about generating profits and less about service to their customers and keeping them happy. 

Bigwheels1111

Got my Mum to make a complaint via phone call on Friday.

03457 404 404

https://www.hsbc.co.uk/help/feedback-and-complaints/

As soon as its sorted she is switching to First Direct.

I know they are the same group but FD is 100 times better.

WillPS

Have a look at this thread, some good advice there:
https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6546814/banks-refusing-ignoring-sidestepping-clear-requests-to-register-complaints-via-chat

Ulrich

Bigwheels1111 said:

Got my Mum to make a complaint via phone call on Friday.

03457 404 404

https://www.hsbc.co.uk/help/feedback-and-complaints/

As soon as its sorted she is switching to First Direct.

I know they are the same group but FD is 100 times better.

She won't get a switch bonus! JK
I don't remember where exactly but quite recently I saw a discussion and people were pretty adamant on that FD today is much worse that it used to be. So maybe comparing to HSBC, which goes downhill fast, it's still 100x better but.. I know, it's everywhere.

400ixl

Ulrich said:

Bigwheels1111 said:

Got my Mum to make a complaint via phone call on Friday.

03457 404 404

https://www.hsbc.co.uk/help/feedback-and-complaints/

As soon as its sorted she is switching to First Direct.

I know they are the same group but FD is 100 times better.

She won't get a switch bonus! JK
I don't remember where exactly but quite recently I saw a discussion and people were pretty adamant on that FD today is much worse that it used to be. So maybe comparing to HSBC, which goes downhill fast, it's still 100x better but.. I know, it's everywhere.

That was likely the thread where a couple of people were vocal and adamant that was the case, but most considered them to be good.

The independent customer satisfaction surveys still have FD in the top quartile.

Hoenir

Ulrich said:

I know nowadays every institution slashes their costs and the easiest one is to save on customer service.

Logging a complaint straight into the system and allocating a unique reference number at the same time. Is no different to the way most customer support services systems work whether they be internal or external. Emails have to be manually read, processed and assigned. That's a huge amount of unproductive time. Particularly when people almost immediately follow up with a phone call chasing for progress or send emails subsequently with the same information repeated. 

Ulrich

Hoenir said:

Ulrich said:

I know nowadays every institution slashes their costs and the easiest one is to save on customer service.

Logging a complaint straight into the system and allocating a unique reference number at the same time. Is no different to the way most customer support services systems work whether they be internal or external. Emails have to be manually read, processed and assigned. That's a huge amount of unproductive time. Particularly when people almost immediately follow up with a phone call chasing for progress or send emails subsequently with the same information repeated. 

So what's your point exactly?
I know many businesses with email as ONE of the channels for complaints - they acknowledge receipt automatically, assign case numbers etc - it does exist and work.
Same goes to web forms.
And as some pointed out, it's in line with this thing.

Theleak250

Send a letter to them. 

Nasqueron

With the online chat bots - just start the chat "register a complaint" and any half decent system will do this

born_again

Ulrich said:

Hi All,

I had no need to contact HSBC for some time but had to do so last week.
It turned out the only way to make a complaint online is via their chat, which involves a live agent that might or might not register your complaint.
On top of that I don't know how they want me to provide supporting documents as their chat does not offer file upload feature.
Ended up making a complaint via Resolver about HSBC severely restricting customers' options to make complaints online and got a quick final response.

They admit "streamlining" process of raising complaints by getting rid of email option and using the chat instead.
The tricky thing is they state that their "chat service is not designed for messages to be exchanged immediately, it sends a notification once an agent has replied" but also "a complaint was unable to be raised as you would have needed to remain online, to be provided with the case reference", which is kind of 2 opposite things. They close a chat for inactivity 5 minutes after an agent sent you a message and if you did not respond within that timeframe, it's a new chat - pretty horrible design to my taste as it wastes a lot of time.

Basically, my point is that by getting rid of email and online form for making complaints HSBC made it much harder for their clients to raise a complain online.
The phone, branch and letter options are much less convenient, easy and sometimes not even fit for purpose.

I know nowadays every institution slashes their costs and the easiest one is to save on customer service.
However, I think they went too far in doing that.
Does anyone have experience in using Financial Ombudsman for something like that?

https://www.hsbc.co.uk/help/feedback-and-complaints/

Failing to log a complaint is a sure fire fine for a bank.

Email or chat still require the same number of staff to work them.