To want to call my local Barclays branch but to only be allowed to talk to someone in the Far East?

[nigelslaterfan]

Someone who couldn't even get through to the branch themselves?

I mean how is that customer service?

Why can't I call my branch (1 mile away) and speak to a p e r s o n, in real time on the phone?

Why doesn't the customer matter at all to Barclays?

[scarlets]

I can't stand overseas call centre workers reading from a script.

Someone once said to me, "we are very sorry for insert problem". That company lost my business.

Also when they claim to be called Lisa or Brian.

[AnneElliott]

Agree that Barclays are shit. They hold the account for the PTA funds and the run around they gave me taking out the floats for the fete was unbelievable! In the end I told them that if I was going to steal the money, I'd have written a cheque from the cheque book and not asked for 4 stones in weight of coins

[HellKitty]

The scripts are hilarious! I had trouble with my Barclaycard being blocked, no reason to block it, so used the free phone in Barclays to discuss it. An Indian call centre worker went through the ID proof checks with me over the phone, this consisted of him reading out a long list of Indian names with my very white, very English XH's name in there. And asking which one I knew. Every question had 5 options, 4 of them very obviously Indian. Ridiculous.

[5Foot5]

Another First Direct fan here - we have always found them friendly and very helpful. We will be eternally grateful to the lovely lady in their call centre who went out of her way to help when we both had our wallets stolen while on holiday in Paris.

Having said that, I think even they are cutting staff because if we ring them now I notice it takes longer than it used to before it gets answered. However, we can do most of our business on-line so that is not a biggy.

[Icimoi]

Likewise. I had a simple query with NatWest - I just wanted to find why they hadn't actioned a standing order request I'd sent them. I could only speak to someone in a call centre who obviously had no means of checking and couldn't give me the local branch's number or email address. So I had to resort to good old-fashioned snail mail as the only means of communicating with them. Eventually I got a reply via email (having asked them to respond that way in my letter) which did sort it out but insisted on describing my query as a complaint, which it really wasn't - but I suppose some computerised system required them to characterise it that way to get it dealt with.

[KittyLovesPaintingOhYes]

My beef is with HSBC - two bloody months to set up internet banking, four visits to the branch, endless conversations with 'Dave' in Bangalore. I'm just grateful to get it sorted before they close the branch. Sodding banks.

[FyreFly]

I had this recently with lastminute.com

Their helpline only takes you to an Indian call centre, which was useless at dealing with my problem. All I wanted to do was speak to someone in their actual office in England, rather than in a generic call centre half a world away.

In the end I had to complain via facebook. Oddly enough, then I was put through to someone English... English customer service reps do exist!

[AbandonShark]

Just to throw a slightly different light on this, I spoke to someone at a call centre who was very obviously foreign, strong accent etc. Understood her perfectly. Next call centre, the customer service person had a really strong Geordie accent and I couldn't understand him at all

I'm English for heck's sake, what's wrong with me??

[AbandonShark]

(But yes, totally with you OP. It's madness!)

[WanderWomble]

I'm with Lloyds and I can't fault them. I set up a direct debit a few weeks ago and the person doing it made it for 10x what it should have been. It cleared out my current account.

Went in to the branch and they had it sorted in a day, with the money back in my account.

Then I wrote an angry letter to the company who messed up.

[FyreFly]

It's not the accents that bother me (although the 'John' and 'Edward' names aren't fooling anyone ) it's the fact that half the time they can't help you because they're in a call centre, not a customer service office. I mean what's the point? Other than exploiting a developing country for cheap labour, ofc.

My half-deaf grandma does struggle with the accents though. Sometimes she gets quite distressed and confused that she can't talk to her bank and that she can't understand the man on the end of the phone.

[LurkingHusband]

Of course, things could always be worse

[nigelslaterfan]

But what is the thinking behind their approach? Why don't they want our business? It's like they want to drive people away, that seems counter-intuitive. Unless we're just too small to matter.

[LurkingHusband]

But what is the thinking behind their approach? Why don't they want our business?

Who says they don't want your business ? They want it very much. It's just they don't want to pay very much to keep it.

Or, to put it another way, how much would you be prepared to pay a month, to get the service you'd like ? £10 ? £20 ? 1% of balance ? 1.05% of balance ?

If your answer to the latter question is "nothing" then you've answered your own question.

Folk need to remember that the UK is rare, if not unique in the world, in that we've developed a retail banking model which is "free" for the most part. We could always return to per-transaction fees, and paying for lost/stolen cards etc, and paying to setup DDs etc ? However, it's clear by behaviour that the vast majority of people are happy to have free crap service, than pay for better service.

[Sparklingbrook]

I would pay if it meant I could talk to a real life person.

[LurkingHusband]

I'm with Nationwide.

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-205726/Nationwide-invests-UK-centres.html

[0x530x610x750x630x79]

But it doesn't matter where the people are based, any bank employee can only tell you what is on the computer, and is only allowed to do what the computer will let them

[bruffin]

Ive had a dreadful experience with them recently. My DM was a customer and it has been a nightmare trying to set up an executor account. Every other bank will let set up the executor account before probate so it is ready when you once probate is ready. Barclays will not let you do that. The excutors were all over the country so not often in the one place together. We were told to go into local bank to sign papers, but then given the wrong papers, then were told we needed appointments to do the papers. in my area there were no appointments for weeks
They are a complete nightmare to deal with and I had one bank manager standing at the top of the stairs shouting at me
They tried to compensate me for that but wanted to put the compenstation into an account that they said was closed.

[DiscoMoo]

I used to work in a call centre for a bank and we got irate people all the time who'd rung their local branch's number and been put through to us. Worse, we weren't allowed to transfer them to their branch unless it was the last resort - and then the branches would never answer so we'd have to message the bank to ask them to call back. One of our targets was 'calls to branch' - over a certain number and we were marked down on performance (which would have a financial impact on salary).

I totally understood why - it saves the staff in the branch having to deal with endless simple queries that a call centre can answer, thus freeing them up to deal with customers who were in front of them. But so infuriating when elderly Mrs Jones just wanted to see if she'd left her dog in the bank and I couldn't get hold of anyone there.

[Sparklingbrook]

freeing them up to deal with customers who were in front of them.

YY that they can cross sell products and services to which are also target based no doubt....

[bruffin]

Discomoo
With barclays i had to call the callcentre to make an appointment and then they didnt have access to the diary of the local branches. They had to email the branches and get one to call me back the next day. Even then it was a week to the next appointment.