The customer comes first?

I had a go at Santander a couple of issues ago for its blood vessel-bursting banking. Iain Lyall, who runs Glan Conwy General Stores, revealed that the bank’s migration of Alliance & Leicester business accounts into the Santander system meant some people had to wait 14 days for access to their accounts.

At the time, Iain was assuring me that he would not be the only one affected because he had narrowed it down to a certain sort code. Spot-on Iain. Mick the Milk (who delivers you know what to my house, and also owns and runs the nearby bakery) arrived holding fistfuls of hair the other week. He was very unhappy with Santander: staff to pay vat to pay umpteen cheques to track (milk rounds being one of those few activities left where a lot of people pay by cheque).

He was equally furious with EE (Everything Everywhere, aka Orange and T-Mobile) as he was unable to take orders from catering customers on his T-Mobile. He was missing out big time.

Anglo Saxon-spewing husband, who also tries to run his business via Orange, had two weeks of no signal (in London). The couldn’t-care-less helpline operator just kept saying, yes problems in lots of areas. Mast upgrades, etc, etc.

Husband was sending regular email updates to the CEO of EE, Olaf Swantee, and once the problem was fixed his office rang with an apology, a promise of a knuckle-rap for the helpline operator and fifty quid!

And very happy to report Iain’s latest. He writes: “Just a quick update on my problems. Santander have resolved their problems and I am now able to view my account. They have added £200 to the account on top of the previous £25 for the initial trouble. The ‘Formal Complaint’ method appears to have had the desired effect.”

Jolly damn fine. Always go for the top.