How To Do Customer Service On The Cheap (Shocking BarclayCard, Shocking)
Posted by Simon in Misc with 8 Responses
Customer Service is difficult. You have to deal with difficult customers who all demand different things at different times. Companies that do it well become very successful and sometimes live off that reputation. So how can you do it on the cheap? Well, I came across a perfect example today, and it wasn’t pretty.
Let me start off by giving a bit of background. I signed up for a new Credit Card. Christmas, along with a trip to New York, is coming up, so a bit of credit comes in handy. Especially when BarclayCard are offering interest free purchases and balance transfers. Great, so I signed up. A few days later my new Platinum BarclayCard arrived in the post. I phoned up to activate it and transfer some money from a different card. Great, I thought, job done.
Well, no.
I received a letter earlier this week saying that the account was in arrears and I owed them two minimum payments. Couldn’t be, I thought. I set up a Direct Debit when I signed up. Apparently, BarclayCard have failed to carry out my instruction to set up a Direct Debit which meant I had missed a payment. So as soon as I received the letter I logged in to their website and immediately set up a direct debit. After a while something occured to me. I remember reading something in the terms and conditions that said if a payment was made late, any promotional rates would be lost. So at this point I tried to contact BarclayCard to find out if this is the case. And this is where the poor customer service really goes out of its way to hinder you.
Firstly, I looked for a phone number to call. With respect to BarclayCard, the number was easy to find (see image to the right, click to enlarge). So I called this “24 Hour” number. Turns out that this number only really operates 24 hours a week, not a day. So despite the number being labelled “24 Hours”, and despite making me type out my full 16 digit credit card number, I got a message saying the line was closed and advising me of the opening hours. It then abruptly cut my off. How DARE I think a number labelled “24 Hour” would actually by open on a Saturday Afternoon.
Right. Let’s try the online contact methods then. Once again, easy to find, but the actual design just screams “GO AWAY!“. As a web designer, you often have to consider your target audience. If you’re designing a site like this, you can be fairly confident that visitors are fairly IT literate. So you can take a few liberties. If you are designing a site for a bank, you can’t. Many visitors will be completely un-IT-literate, beginners. People like your parents. So everything has to be clear, big, easy to read and obvious. What you don’t expect is a form that limits what you can say and rushes you. but that’s what I found. I’ve put a 
screenshot to the left (click to enlarge) so you can see for yourself. It limits the amount you can write and imposes a time limit. There is absolutely no reason for doing either of these things other than to restrict what the user writes. They really don’t want you to contact them. Can you imagine your mother, for example, trying to write out a query in a tiny form box, in a limited amount of characters and within a time limit. To make matters worse, there’s a bug in their javascript that means when you reach the limit, your cursor and view jump to the top of the text box, so you can’t easily delete parts of your message.
Of course, this isn’t the full story of poor customer service. Since then I was told that it takes Six Weeks to set up a direct debit, so I had to pay the amount owed. Which I did. But then I was phoned up by someone from BarclayCard demanding payment. This is despite the fact I have a Direct Debit set up (twice!), have paid the amount requested by bank transfer and, worse of all, when I log in to may account it says payment isn’t due for another 9 days. I’ve never had such a poor customer service experience with any company. Maybe the Credit Crunch is affecting customer service?
So, to summarise. If you want to do customer service on the cheap, advertise great customer service like a 24 hour contact number, but don’t follow it through. And then, make any other means of contacting you impossible to use.
I’ve heard a rumour that the only way that BarclayCard accept complaints is written in blood on 200 year old parchment.
Popularity: 10% [?]
Related Posts
Converse
Subscribe to this post's comments feed or use the form below to receive email updates.
8 Responses to “How To Do Customer Service On The Cheap (Shocking BarclayCard, Shocking)”. You can read these comments below, add your own using the form at the bottom.
Leave a Reply
-
-
Post Details
This post was written on December 8, 2007 (last modified on December 8, 2007) by Simon and posted in Misc.
Popular
Ads
![[Valid RSS]](http://www.oakinnovations.co.uk/blog/wp-content/themes/OIB5/valid-rss.png "Validate my RSS feed")
In relation to your above comments regarding barclaycard. If you read the terms and conditions properly, your bank details are taken on application as part of the checks barclaycard perform to be able to offer you a credit limit on your account. When you phone to activate your account you have the option there to set up a direct debit.
Also if you checked your statements it would have told you if you had a direct debit set up.
The customer services team are 24/7 it’s only departments such as collections which aren’t open 24 hours a day.
I hoped this has helped you
February 15th, 2008 at 1:03 pm
I think you’re missing out on two crucial points, Mike. Firstly, I gave the instruction to set up the DIrect Debit when I activated the card. It was Barclay Card that failed to carry out my instruction. Secondly, if you log onto their website and look up the contact numbers, the “Customer Service” number, under the 24 hours a day header, was the one I called. It wasn’t collections, which, by the way, I couldn’t actually get a direct number for (that’s another story, and goes some way to explain why ID fraud is so prevalent these days). I made no mistake, the 24 number, clearly stated as such on their website, was closed on a Saturday afternoon.
BarclayCard, to their credit, have since admitted their mistakes, corrected my account and refunded all charges. Unfortunately my complaint had to be escalated several levels before this happened.
February 15th, 2008 at 8:58 pm
I am just off the phone to the financial industry ombudsman, to whom I have lodged a formal complaint about the same thing. I have just come back from a 2 week holiday in Australia, all the while using my Barclaycard (BC) safe in the knowledge it was all 0% interest. Uh Uh… not so, BC failed to carry out my direct debit instruction also, despite confirming receipt. As soon as I realised the money I had set aside for the first payment was still sitting in my account, I called and made a manual payment. This was 6 days after it was due however, and I am therefore in default of the agreement through no fault of my own. AT NO POINT did anyone I spoke to, either while setting up my direct debit, or when I rang to make a manual payment, inform me I had lost the promotional reate. I AM FURIOUS!!! I have found similar stories on the web, others who tried to make first payment by cheque.
I tried to speak to someone but could only get call centre staff in a particular country where its cheaper to house call centres. I was escalated to a team manager who confirmed he was not able to re-instate my promotional rate and flat out refused to transfer me to, or give me details of his supervisor, claiming it was personal information.
Its my suspicion that BC rely on this and make a lot of money on the people who never bother to complain.
Welcome further comments, I’ll be checking back!!!
February 22nd, 2008 at 1:09 pm
Be sure to let us know how you get on, Chris. As I said in a previous comment, my complaint got escalated several levels (dare I say it had to be escalated back into this country?) before it was resolved. The strange, and frustrating thing about the whole episode was that I got absolutely no joy until it reached a certain level, from which point on they were completely understanding, admitted their mistake, refunded all charges and reinstated the offer. I even had the name and direct number of a representative. It’s just a shame it had to go so far and the customer service was so bad initially.
I’m tempted to agree with you about Barclay Card using this tactic to break people out of the interest free offer. It’s telling that the letter you receive saying you’ve missed a payment doesn’t actually mention the fact you’ve lost the promotional rate.
February 23rd, 2008 at 11:49 pm
I’m also having a night mare with BarclayCard. I’m fuming after one call to an Italian call centre (apparently), 2 to India and a 1 to a barclays call centre in Manchester. The Indian call centre people are something else. Could you perhaps share the number for the people you go through to in the UK?
April 17th, 2008 at 1:49 pm
As far as I’m aware there isn’t one. At least that’s what they insisted when I asked. The only way I ended up dealing with someone in the UK was to lodeg my complaint with the Financial Industry Ombudsman and wait for Barclaycard to reply (which for the record they did and dealt with my complaint to my satisfaction - 0% promotional interest rate re-instated, late fee and interest refunded)
Good luck - Chris.
April 17th, 2008 at 2:51 pm
I had a very serious problem with my card my payment due date was 9 of june for 643£ and on 5th of June I deposited 340£ in barclays branch so the due amount was 200 something which has to be direct debit to my acct on 9th of June but, the barclays took the full 643£ again from my acct because of. That some other direct debit got affected and now I have to pay the fee for overdraft.I think it should not happen with me because they send me the paying slip with the statment which usually I dont get with other cards because of direct debit set up,barclays send me that creating confusion as if direct debut is not set up,and if I have paid more than minimum ammount they should have not took the the money from my acct atleast not more than I owe them
June 9th, 2008 at 3:20 pm
just another bit of info . i had a £50 fixed direct debit which suited my usage. then i spent a lot more and my minimum payment should have been £120 . However on the statement it says they will collect the appropriate amount . i assumed they would take £120 no not a chance they took 50 sent me a nasty letter and took £12 late payment fee…………….since refunded
June 27th, 2008 at 12:41 pm