Saturday, October 08, 2005

Crappy opening hours for Banks and Post Offices!


I am going to rant now and I apologise in advance if I offend anyone but banks and Post Offices really cheese me off!

Today we got up early this morning as Jamie had over £200 to deposit in the bank from his students who have recently joining the school fantasy football league. So we arrive at the bank nice and early to hand over the money to a smiling bank teller, only to be told, " we don't have any over the counter staff who work on Saturday mornings and it is like this in every branch of HSBC!"
"What?"
" You can deposit your money in that machine over there."

Did she think I had got up early to give this money to a machine?
I asked her when I would be able to smile and hand my money over to a human instead of a piece of metal and she relied, " Oh our opening hours are Monday to Friday 9.30 - 4.30pm"
9.30 to 4.30pm! I wonder what percentage of people can actually use a bank during these opening hours!
What has happened to dealing with humans instead of online this and electronic that? All I wanted to make sure was that the correct amount of money was going into the correct place and I am not sure if a machine can do that or me!

Post Offices... here's another example of the poor service that is being offered to people who work and cannot get to them during their shoddy opening hours. 9.00 to 4.30pm closed from 12 noon on a Wednesday and some even close for a lunch hour from 12 noon till 2pm. ( Their maths must be terrible as I make this 2 hours!!)

Well I suppose I should count myself lucky that the local Post Office near school is actually open over lunch, but when I spend 15+ minutes in a queue waiting to buy a stamp to post to Europe or North America, I don't feel so lucky!

Crappy services, bring back sensible opening hours and dealing with humans. Is that too much to ask?

JA
PS. Jamie thinks I totally over react in situations like this, anything for an easy life he says!
Oh and the machine ate our money. Here's hoping it was the right amount going to the right place.

1 comment:

Matthew Francis said...

There is a bank here in Alberta (not the one we use, but I'm tempted to swtich) that actually has people who you can talk to. For instance, if you call the bank... it's an actual person that you talk to! Not a very cleverly disguised machine that uses casual phrases to sound more human. Do you have those over there? It's funny, the voice used to definitely sound like a robot... but now it sounds more human, but it still can't tell what you're saying and then puts you in a queue to talk to a person in an hour or something!