Press nothing to speak to a human! A tale of First Direct

When it comes to Call Centres, one company stands out year after year: the online bank First Direct. I've been a customer of these people for a LOT of years now - it was my first bank, in fact - and I've got so many positive stories about this HSBC-owned gem that I'm amazed I haven't raved about them before. Well, it's time to fix that!

You see, the Rapide people have asked me to blog about Call Centres, and - umm, in general they're not things I tend to rave about. In fact, I dread having to call a Call Centre. All that waiting in line and pressing options you're not quite sure about. I don't mind paying my bills using automated IVR systems, even if it does involve punching Visa card numbers into my keypad: that's easy enough. The problem with Call Centres is when you need them to do something just a little bit out of the ordinary. That's where so many Call Centre processes simply "break".

I don't know if you're a First Direct customer, but if you are, you'll know their processes are designed not to break. There's always somebody with the authority to solve your problem - and 9 times out of 10, that person will be the one who first answers the phone (at least according to this review of First Direct). Take this example.

Recently I noticed a very strange transaction on my statement. An amount I didn't recognise. For a start, it was a cheque - remember those? - and secondly it'd blown my balance below zero, which as you know leads to all sorts of charges and fees you can't afford suddenly sending you into debt the following month. (First Direct levies lots of these, unfortunately - it may be a nice bank, but it's still a bank.)  So I did something I haven't done in years: phoned the freephone number! In fear and trepidation.

Once I'd got through - it took all of two rings - a nice young man with a Leeds accent answered. I explained the problem, and he did something very rare for a Call Centre agent: he listened.

Now, this is an out-of-the-ordinary problem. The difference is that at First Direct they don't try to fit your problem into an existing process (like the story of a festivalgoer my brother Rant recently related) - for them, it's ACTION STATIONS until they solve it!

So he went into action. While I was on hold, he talked to his Fraud department, who have instant access to cheques and other paperwork on their screens. A couple of minutes later he was back.. and, in incredulous tones....

"Ms Rave, the cheque seems to bear your signature... and it's to Mr [deleted] in the same pen... but the date on the cheque is 2006!"

Well, there's a thing. It was indeed my cheque, for a friend's new baby (who's now a bouncing four-year-old!) Somehow, the cheque had been presented and cashed very recently. Now, the bank shouldn't really have cleared it - they must have missed the handwritten date - but ultimately, we'd solved the problem. Except for one thing...

"Ok, well that's sent your balance below zero hasn't it? Let's see what we can do about that..."

Now this is what I call a Call Centre! He's not just dealing with the issue itself, but with the unintended consequences of the issue. Very unusually for a Call Centre, the agent was able to make certain decisions regarding the cancellation of charges himself, without needing to clear it up the chain. In the end, that call was all I needed to answer my problem.

It's easy to understand why: at First Direct, things like call-handling-time aren't performance indicators. Because what matters to them is the satisfaction of the customer. And that's all that really matters.

Those nice people at Rapide recently wrote an interesting paper on Call Centres - why not take 30 seconds to ask for a download?