It seems so!
I have problems every single time I need to talk to my bank over one problem or another (usually of their making). It gets so bad I think I may as well just give up, but I don't give up and that's probably not a bad thing but I can feel it having an effect on me. Apparently, after years of low and normal blood pressure, it is now high, or at least it's on the 'high' side of normal or so the doc says, I mean is it any wonder when some teeny tiny little problem that should take no more than 5 minutes to sort out takes over an hour?
Before it was taken over by a bank I would never go near with a ten foot bargepole, it was a great bank, very helpful people you could call on a dedicated line and problems large, small and indifferent were sorted out quick and easy, but things went from great to unbelievably abysmal in the matter of a few months. Doesn't matter that I've been with present bank since the early eighties, still get treated by some of them like I'm 6 years old and that's not a good thing to do to me!
Since the complete domination of the call centre, personal, decent service has gone (this lot are in the UK and can understand what I'm after which you'd think would be half the battle, but no, they are always 'not the right department madam, I'll transfer you' at which point you are not transferred but cut off). Not only do I end up being cut off (is there a more annoying and soul destroying sound than the single tone you are left with when that happens?) and wanting to throw the phone out of the window, I want to go down and pitch up at 'Bank HQ' and have it out with 'em there and then. If I manage to get reconnected to this 'service' after waiting an eternity for the phone to be answered, I am likely to be met with a pseudo sympathetic teenager saying: 'oh that shouldn't happen' when you tell them you are likely to explode if they don't help. Oh, and that recorded message in one of the most infuriating tones ever which 'us lucky customers' must endure, telling me they are: 'busy helping other customers.' Wonder how long those lucky people waited to be 'helped'?
Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrgggggggggggggggggggggggggggg (pause for breath) gggggggggggggggggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!
Today I finally got the problem sorted out, a full hour and twenty minutes after I started calling. I wouldn't mind (well I do actually - see above) but I ring the right department, and am led upon a useless and time consuming merry chase around the various departments and personalities that infest this bank's call centre, before the merry-go-round stops at the very first place I came in. So, the upshot is that I did finally get the current problem sorted by a helpful guy in the (right) department (a full blown rarity I grant you). He not only sorted the problem out but is going to give me a small amount of financial compensation - which won't be going into double figures so don't get excited.
Why banks don't employ people who have a brain cell (like the guy above) I don't know - probably costs more you're right.
The current problem was, apparently, the computers fault! 'Oh,' I heard myself saying 'that old chestnut.'
Now it;'s time for a well earned cup of tea with sugar in and possibly a lie down in a dark room for an hour or so till the husband traipses in from wherever he's been today, Bluewater I s'pect! Ah well, at least the old car passed it's MOT today! Small mercies I know!
© silversapphire 2009
All rights reserved. No part of the publications, or of this website may be reproduced or transmitted in any form, or by any means without the express prior written permission of the Author
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: only a member of this blog may post a comment.