Nationwide understaffed and overworked

newfoundglory

Title says it all really. I went into a Nationwide branch yesterday at about 2pm to open a Cash ISA. This branch in London had only 2, yes 2!!!!, members of staff, both who were working behind the counters. Massive long queue as you can imagine. "Sorry, we have no staff. You'll have to come back tomorrow to open an account"

So, i went to another Nationwide branch 10 mins down the road. Unfortunately, that branch also seemed to be experiencing a similar problem. There wasnt much of a queue, but there wasnt any staff either. The helpful lady on the reception was great, but she was clearly overworked. She went out of her way to open the account for me herself, but in doing so opened the wrong type of ISA and therefore had to spend further time correcting her mistake.

I dont blame the staff, its not their fault. I have been a big fan of Nationwide in the past and I have been a customer for many year - but this is shameful for such a large building society. I SHOULD be able to open an ISA over the phone like I can at other banks I have accounts with. But no, with nationwide you must go into a branch.

Anyway, rant over.

setmefree2

Worth knowing - I was considering a Nationwide ISA and I live in London too. Have you looked at The Lloyds TSB fixed rate Cash ISA - 6.5% for a year?:money:

neiljc_2

We have been customers for over 20 years witht the Nationwide and ever since we moved to Lincoln the service has become very poor.

There is always a long queue in branch and often they dont know about their own products

we had a manager treat us like ***** when we asked to draw down on our mortgage account and he made us feel like he was doing us a big favour by giving us our own money!

needless to say we have moved business from them including Building and contents insurance,life insurance, e savings, current account and next month our mortgage is moving to First direct.

It did use to be really good, now even though it is not a bank, it acts just like one in customer service

Reggie_Rebel

The Nationwide's local to me seem to be on a mission to reduce the number of counter points, increase the number of staff standing about waiting and have a uniform change at least once a day.

C_Ronaldo

ive noticed the same about nationwide, the one i use only has 3 spaces for cashiers adn sometimes theres only 2 cashiers on with a long queue

brightonman123

oh dear. better make another orderly queue, Mr Darling..

(bank run #2 starts here?)

mrs_scrooge

Another non fan here!

My daughter opened a SMART savings account online just before Xmas. It took until February before it was open and 3 branch visits and about 5 phone calls to sort it out. Eventually she got...........................2 accounts!

Don't bother to open an account online to save time, it's faster to go in to the branch (well it wouldn't have taken 6-8 weeks even with queues!).

reehsetin

i've used 2 branches in north london and both are pretty good rarely that busy and def more than 2 staff in each

ManAtHome

Think they're on a mission to pi$$ off the customers - had active accounts with them for a long time until they started the "miss mopsey does security" stuff. Still have the flex and CC, but only use them for euro-hols these days.

Don't have any concerns about them joining NR, but I do have concerns about having to write down answers to non-instinctive questions (makes any security compromise my fault).

randomsam08

i spent hours and hours on the phone to the silly sods at nationwide this morning and to be honest a classroom full of 6yr olds probably know banking better than the tits that answer the phone queries.

ever tried complaining? you have no choice but to speak to a 'senior advisor' usually one thats thick as [EMAIL="pigsh@t"]pigsh@t[/EMAIL] blagging you with all the excuses.

does anyone have an email address for the complaints department at all? i asked them but no one was that helpful

Sssssss

randomsam08 wrote: »

to be honest a classroom full of 6yr olds probably know banking better than the tits that answer the phone queries.

thanks this made me laugh this morning