The financial services industry is currently facing major issues when it comes to customer service. Following scandals such as the misselling of products such as Payment Protection Insurance (PPI) and major technology problems at RBS, consumer confidence is at an all time low. No wonder that an increasing number of customers are looking to take their business elsewhere.As part of its remit to prot...
Customer services (Photo credit: gordon2208) On the Eptica blog we’ve regularly talked about how social media provides a megaphone for customers to talk about your brand – but despite this new research shows that companies simply aren’t listening.Our own 2012 Eptica Social Customer Service Study surveyed 2,000 consumers across the UK and France on their attitudes to using s...
Last week’s IT problems at HSBC demonstrate how quickly a customer service issue can develop in the age of social media. On Friday afternoon the bank suffered an IT outage on its mainframe which affected online banking, ATM and some customers using debit cards in stores. While the problems lasted just over 2 hours, Friday afternoons are amongst the busiest time for banks, with HSBC’s 1...
Figures just released by the Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS) show that the number of complaints made by consumers increased by 24% in the third quarter. 31,386 complaints were made to the FOS, which deals with issues escalated by consumers beyond their financial services provider, between July and September 2011.Commentators have highlighted factors such as the worsening economic situation for t...
This week the Independent Commission on Banking (ICB) released its long-awaited report on reforming the banking system. It has two main aims - firstly to protect us all from potential future financial crises by splitting bank’s retail and investment arms but importantly to increase competition within the UK banking sector.In fact the report states that it wants a market where “ba...
Last weekend the British arm of banking giant Santander became the latest company to announce plans to return its international contact centres to the UK. The aim is to improve customer service, after previous poor performance was highlighted by the industry ombudsman.This is obviously good news for the 500 new UK staff taken on to handle the estimated 1.5 million calls that will now be &lsq...