To think this service was just terrible? This man was on a power trip

[SmeganMegan]

I went into my local bank branch to make a transfer - it was above the daily limit I have on the app. At the counter the man again tried to force me to use the app, advised I couldn’t as I’m over my limit, he said to use facial recognition to increase the amount - I didn’t want to (politely).

He made me wait in the queue to be served by someone at the desk. 30 minutes I sat there, she was still serving the same customer that entire time.

The guy eventually walks over to me and takes me back to the counter to do the transaction. No apology at all and clearly could have done the transfer for me there and then.

For reference it’s a small branch and there was only me and the other customer in there when I walked in.

It's pretty telling when customers who actually want a human to help them are described as time wasters. Plenty of people including OP have given good reasons why they might not want or be able to use the app. Safety being one of them. But that aside, it's a service the bank claims to provide. So they should provide it. And as for comparing it to a&e, I can't roll my eyes hard enough. OP it's SHIT! And it's disenfranchising whole chunks of society, but it seems like that is not as important as bank guy's paperwork.

Entirely this

We just moved from NatWest due to their awful customer service and downright rudeness from branch staff. I think I’m quite tolerant and give some leeway, ie don’t know what’s going on in someone’s life, maybe they’ve had a terrible day, etc, but the incident that was the nail in the coffin was unforgivable! So I say vote with your feet and move bank - and tell exactly them why you’ve left.

@ApplejackMoondancer did you find a better option? Wondering if HSBC is any better. My local branch looks like an Apple store, which suggests they might even tolerate customers.

Banks put huge amounts of pressure on their branch staff to get people to do stuff online. It's purposeful. Not specifically your case but they do not want walk-in customers anymore.

I completely disagree.

It's unrealistic to expect other people to do absolutely everything for you.

If I go into a supermarket, and I ask the woman working there to pick all the items off the shelves, and put them into my trolley for me as I dont want to do it myself,

she would refuse, and she would tell me to get lost. As I can do it myself

Just because they are working there doesn't mean they have to do everything for you.

It's the same with banks. If someone can do something quickly on the app themselves, why go in and waste staffs time to get them to do it for you.

There's other stuff they actually need to be doing. For example, some fixed term savings accounts can only be opened in branch, so people do have to go into branch to do that.

Welcome to modern consumer banking. They are trying to phase out branches to reduce costs and clearly are deliberately making it difficult to do business over the counter. Until recently I was the treasurer of a small local charity and used to have to deal with cash which I regularly deposited in the local branch. Went in one day and they cheerfully announced that they no longer handle coinage over the counter and there was no way to pay it in the branch. They forced me to apply for a payment card on the account (took ages and we the had to get new cards when changed officers) (after first suggesting I deposit the cash into a personal account and then transfer it which is totally inappropriate) and then use the post office to pay in the cash. This was after starting to charge us fees on a charity account. Luckily I was coming to the end of my time as treasurer and my replacement has the joy of moving out accounts to a more friendly bank if she manages to find one.

I knew it would be NatWest. They are dreadful.

My DH has to go to a branch near on an hour away because the one that is 30 minutes down the road (the nearest one now) is full of little ignorant and rude wide boys who wouldn't know customer service if it slapped them.

DH has said his app doesn't do what it should and these little creeps are rude, and sneering. They act like he's thick. Whilst the older staff in the branch further away are stars and always happy to help.

In a time when so many branches are being ditched, we all should demand decent customer service and apps which work.

I've complained about NatWest and they don't care. They are appalling

If I go to a supermarket I can scan stuff myself or I can take it to a human at a till. If I queue up at the till I don't expect the cashier to refuse to serve me because I could have scanned it myself.

My smartphone wont run the updated app for my bank. I will not be replacing my phone in the foreseeable. I dont need anything more than I have. I use online banking and phone them for something 'unusual' to be done. They have on record that I am unable to use their App and dont even mention it anymore.
I am the customer and if they want my business they will accommodate my requirements!

What an utterly depressing thread.

I don't understand why bank staff are trying to do themselves out of a job. Every time I have been to a branch in the past 5 years they have told me how to do something online. The only reason we go to the branch now is to pay in cash my DC receive as gifts. And my DC usually go to the post office instead as it is open longer hours. Our local bank is open 10-3 Mon to Fri, not Sat morning opening any more.

You can do one off transactions for large amounts on the NatWest app using facial recognition…

I try and avoid bank branches because of the relentless pushing by the staff ( obviously they are ordered to do so) of services that I don’t want. About 6 months ago I had cause to visit my nominated branch, which was their major city centre branch, on 2 separate occasions both times it was for something I actually need a person for. The branch has greeters who do their utmost to not have you join the waiting queue but most of them do it politely enough not to cause offence on the maybe 2/3 occasions I have visited the beach in the last 5 yrs or so. The 1st time I was visited I was asked what I needed to do and when I explained they directed me to join the queue, all well and good but the queue for an actual person was so long the greeters kept going up and down the waiting queue asking everybody time and time again what they needed to do. On the 3rd time of asking by the same greeter I finally snapped and said you know I have to be in the waiting queue stop asking me, if anyone had changed their mind about waiting they could have easily stepped out of the queue and asked the greeter for help. The 2nd visit I made I had a different issue but still needed to speak to an actual person and the greeter agreed and directed me to join the queue I must have had a grumpy look on my face so they didn’t harass me in the queue but they did keep asking an older lady what she needed to do. It was hard for me not to hear what was going on and apparently she wanted to withdraw money which they suggested she could do at the machine she said she didn’t want to use the machine she wanted to speak to a person. Up to this point okay then they start asking her how much money she wanted to take out as the machine was a better option, she said it was a large sum, they kept asking her how much until in the end she told them, it was a reasonably large sum. She looked in her 70’s maybe 80’s and probably just felt more comfortable speaking to an actual person at a desk and having the time and space available to put the money safely in her bag. So by then everyone in the queue knew that an older possibly more vulnerable woman was going to be leaving the bank branch with a considerable sum of money in her bag. I finally got served and asked to speak to a manager and told her about the “customer service” this older lady had been given and that everyone within earshot now knew she was walking about with money in her bag. I said if they had been concerned about the customer, that maybe she was being coerced to withdraw the money in cash, they could have surely taken her into the private booth and spoken to her there. The manager really couldn’t have cared less.
i say it was their major branch as it’s now getting closed down. I find it hard to feel sorry tbh. It was not a NatWest or Barclays Bank branch but NatWest is it’s parent company

That makes no sense.

how would they be doing themselves out of a job, when they are doing what they are told to do by their employer.

Employees have to do what their employer is telling them to do. We are employed by them.

By telling customers to do it on the app, they are following company rules, and in fact keeping their job safe

It was literally written in my bank training manual when I started my bank job,the following

"If a customer has a query, if it is any function that a customer can do on an app themselves , you must direct the customer to do the function on the app.

If you don't you will marked down on your quality performance reviews. This can lead to discipline and eventually contract termination"

People who work in most places don't get to choose what they want to say to you, they have to follow company rules.

It's not really comparable . I used to work in a supermarket ages ago, like I'm sure many of us have done.

A supermarket worker will have different tasks throughout the day, but when she is assigned to be on till, she will be told to stay there for set amount of time.

While she is at the till, she is only assigned one task to do, scan shopping.

Bank workers have hundreds of tasks to do when they are in branch, customers come in with multitudes and all manners of questions and queries. There are absolutely thousands of issues that can happen with current accounts, joint accounts debit cards, credit cards, savings accounts, fixed term accounts, term loans, mortgages etc etc

Banks need to prioritise tasks.

So banks prioritise by doing what actually needs to be done for customers in the bank, and telling other customers what can be done quickly by themselves on the app

I tried to open a savings account in a local high street building society, I got turned away and told to do it online. There was no queue and 3 members of staff doing nothing when I advised I wanted to open the account in person they told me it was quicker and easier to do it online and they were so unhelpful I walked out, it is ludicrous.

Why do you need another person to open savings account for you when you can do it yourself though?

I don't really understand that genuinely.

I bank myself with a different bank then the one I used to work for. I have a current account and two savings accounts.

I opened all of the accounts myself on the app. I couldn't think if anything worse than going into a branch and waiting around for ages getting someone else to do it for me

Do you also need someone to cut up your dinner and feed you?

What is this bizarre obsession with having someone else do something you can do yourself in five minutes.

Bank threads interest me obviously as i used to work for one.

I can understand the customers point of view, where they get frustrated, and they think the banks are rude

I would also like customers to see it from the bank worker's perspective.

When I was working there in the bank, the overwhelming majority of customers were rude abusive demanding and nasty. I'd say about 70%. 30% of people were nice and polite

And i dealt with hundreds of them a day. I dealt with people coming into branch and I was also dealing with customer calls and emails.

I got multitudes of questions per day that were ridiculous.
For example. I would get about twenty people telling me a day - that they had locked themselves out of their online banking and could I get them back in.

This was a thing that they absolutely had to do themselves online. I literally couldn't do it for them. The security system is set up so only they, not anyone else can see their new temporary password.

I would direct them where to to do it on the website and explain to them over and over that they had to choose a new password themselves online , that I couldn't do that step for them.

I would get answers all the time like "oh but I'm not good with technology" (eh didn't you just tell me what you booked flights with a card online, choosing a new password isn't any harder."
And
"I have to do that myself? Will you not just do it for me"
And
"Oh I'm not good at things like that, will you just give me a handhold at that step? "

And "will you not just tell me the new password here at the counter? "

Then you get the abusive customers. If they had done something wrong like locked themselves out of their app by putting the password in wrong , they would come in and shout at me and tell me "you locked me out of the app again".

I had people coming into do things, with absolutely no details.
They'd say "will you send 5000 to my brother".
Yes what's his account number? "Eh i don't know but I know he banks with barclays and I can give you his name. Will you not find him that way".

I had so many customers demanding that things be done right now .

I had people shouting and swearing at me every week.

I had at least one person every week threaten to me that they were going to leave the bank if we didn't do what they wanted to do.

Like who cares. You're free to go wherever you want. We dont force you to stay and bank with us.

They would say wth ia big dramatic flourish "well i'll go and join another bank"

Like I care in the slightest if they leave and go to another bank. Its their choice. It doesn't hurt me.

If they are a particularly abusive customer I would actually be thinking "great, please do leave".

But I would always say to them "of course. Its your choice where you want to bank"

If you think bank workers are incompetent, go and work in a bank, and see how hard it is dealing with abusive threatening customers every day.

It was an experience and I learned a lot. I wouldn't do it again though!

Ok Kellyanne, we get it. You used to work in a bank, and you would have no problem using the app. But this isn't about you. Some customers prefer to do it differently. You seem unable to understand that some people want to do it differently than you do. And if a business claims to offer a service then they should provide it. Even the presence of customers makes it slightly less efficient. Pesky customers eh, getting in the way.

Impossible to tell

Where does it say anywhere that bank branches do offer that particular service that the Op wanted though? (Funds transfer)

If anyone wants to do a funds transfer , no matter what bank they are with, they will be told to do it on the app.

Customers 'preference' doesn't really matter.

I could ring booking.com and tell them I want their customer service Advisor to book me a hotel, and give her my card details over the phone to do it for me .

they won't do it for me, they will direct me to do it myself on a website.

Oh for goodness sake. I'm out, this is getting repetitive.

I wouldn't necessarily conclude that the person who served OP was being deliberately unhelpful. He was probably doing what he had been told to do.
I find it worrying that there seems to be a plan to close branches and put everything online.
I am in my 70s. I do use the bank app but I wouldn't know what to do if I was told to use facial recognition. I don't want to start asking family to help me manage my money etc. People are going to start losing their independence and privacy sooner than necessary.
It does depend what job you did but I had never used a computer until I was 55. I still know a few people who don't have smartphones.
People in their 70s could live another 15 years and are going to be excluded, as are people with disabilities. I don't see why anyone else should be forced down the DIY route if they don't want to be either.