How a bank lost my business after 16 years

As more accounting solutions look to find banks willing to provide hooks into their systems, it is becoming clear there are banks that get customer service and those that don’t. The difference is a yawning chasm.

The other week I announced on Twitter that I planned to buy a suit. This was a shock to many who only know me as a moderately scruffy so-and-so.

This proposed purchase was set to occur between visits to the UK, having failed miserably to find a combination of jacket and trousers that come remotely close to fitting my odd frame in the US. Hint to US stores – sell separates. I placed an order online with M&S and was told the order had been accepted. Since buying clothes online is dangerous at best and I had time in London, I visited the Oxford Street branch to check whether the suit would fit. All seemed good, it looked pretty good so I was happy to let the purchase continue with collection in Manchester planned the following week. Nevertheless, I thought I’d check to ensure that everything was proceeding as expected. Up a floor to customer services.

Imagine my surprise to find that M&S had the order on hold. No notification at my end in email. Why? They needed to perform extra transaction security checks. This was annoying since I’d already been through that set of hoops with the credit card company (card tied to bank account etc) the previous week while in the US.

A fruitless call to the credit card company followed by an equally fruitless call to the bank, during which I was locked out of resetting my security code (lord only knows why that was necessary) and I blew a fuse. It wasn’t pretty. Service from this bank has slid and slid to the point of near uselessness over a period of 5 years.

What was once a personal service moved to a call centre but was backed up by a personal banker to whom we had a direct line. We paid for that service but that’s OK. Then our personal banker left and was replaced. That was OK as well. Then that person left, we were not informed and started getting odd emails from someone who clearly had no authority to manage our affairs. He left and were transferred to a call centre only service. We could just about manage with that but all the time we’re still paying for the ’service.’ The waste of an hour and a half of my life trying to sort out whatever problem served as the final straw.

“Find us another bank and set it up for when I get back to the UK,” I yelled at ‘er indoors who at the time was visiting family in Yorkshire while I was making my way to the US. To her credit, she was understanding, knowing only too well the number of times she’d had to sort out one problem or another while on UK visits. We’re now with HSBC. It was painless. After 16 years with Yorkshire Bank which is owned by National Australia Group Europe. Their slogan? ‘Always thinking.’ About what?

Like most people I know, changing banks is the last thing I want to do. The fact it is much less painless than in the past, it is the equivalent of getting a divorce, doesn’t change the fact it is a wrench. What is truly saddening though is the fact that knowing I was having problems, Yorkshire Bank seems to have no means of escalating the problem. When a customer is telling you in no uncertain terms that you suck then surely the default behaviour should be something like: “Can you hang on a moment sir while I find a supervisor who can help you?” Apparently not.

Apart from the various fees, which over the years run thousands of pounds, the bank has lost the money market interest it earned on my money along with my credit business.

So what’s the experience with HSBC so far? Despite our living offshore, they can handle that. The new bank cards have been issued along with pin numbers. Access via the internet is a doddle and way simpler than the convoluted nonsense I had to navigate with YBonline. We’re on a reduced temporary credit limit for the credit card element but that’s fine. We’ve got the same overdraft facility as in the past. Again all fine. Terms were all explained in easy to understand terms. Only the future will tell whether we’ve made the right long term decision.

The suit? I doubled down and went to Austin Reed. It looks pretty darned good.

I’ve since been told that others have experienced problems with M&S’s online service. Be that as it may, it was the bank that caught the backdraft for a level of dopeyness that had become intolerable. This might be worth remembering when clients are talking about using a service that integrates to an accounting solution.

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