MSE News: First Direct takes the lead as banks now have to say if their own customers...

A key measure of service will be whether customers would recommend their bank to family and friends.

Pointless exercise, since I always, always give the lowest score possible to this question whenever it crops up - and a not insubstantial number of others do too.

Exemplified by the following:



And, more comedically:

I'm interested in how (for example) HSBC got 55% for "overall service" but scored above 60% in all categories.

far-sighted wrote: »

Actually it's not a high number of people who do what you do

I didn't say that they did. "Not insubstantial" != "high".

far-sighted wrote: »

And, there are ways of tweaking that question to deal with people like you - to get you to answer it :-)

Typically these questions require an answer before submission, thus it doesn't need tweaking.

Oh - you mean tweak "in order to get the answers you're after"? I have no doubt.

If asked for a recommendation for a credit card that charges usurious amounts of interest on balances how likely would you suggest BarcWest ?

That would almost certainly get a ..... same response from me. For different reasons though.

But you can't tell the difference between "0 because the subject thought it a stupid question" or "0 because the subject seriously wouldn't recommend the company if they were the last company on earth."

And if it could be determined (say, from responses to previous questions,) then this question is simply rendered redundant.

far-sighted wrote: »

PS. Oh, and there are companies out there measuring their customer service employees using this question.

Then they are bad companies. And as such I'd probably be even less likely to recommend them.

Specifically, unlike anecdotally recommending companies, I'm far more likely to tell people to steer clear.

Actually that would be one way of tweaking it - at least to get a more accurate answer out of me:

How likely are you to complain about $COMPANY on social media?

o 0 (unlikely)   o 1   o 2   o 3   o 4   o 5   o 6   o 7   o 8   o 9 (highly likely)

Don't see that gaining much friction against those that deal with boardroom members, however.

You know, when you call and at the end of the call they send you this question via text or email. I'm not saying it's a good way of rewarding/punishing employees like this, I'm just saying that some companies do.

So when you give that 0 rating to someone who did a great customer service job, you might be hurting their bonus or their evaluation. Luckily - as I said - not many like you :-)

If that's the only question they're sending, then they're even more of a bad company. If (as has been my experience) they specifically ask questions about the employee I dealt with and how they specifically dealt with me, then they will likely generate much more positive scores for those questions. (Well, presuming they actually deserve them of course - they're nevertheless more accurate against what they're trying to measure.)

I've been with FD for about 20 years now, not too happy that recently they decided to remove my overdraft facility without warning and got a letter to advise 5 days later.

Note to FD, if you are going to remove an overdraft at least give your customers a bit of notice!

(I have written to complain)

Regards their online service, it is pretty basic as parts of their IT infrastructure are pretty archaic, their call centre based system is built on a customised telesales system from the 1980s!