Lloyds pauses live agents "because covid"

Banking Personal Banking
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21

:melon::arrow_up::question: :face_with_raised_eyebrow:

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22

You don’t actually want me to type it out…do you? :rofl:

23

Oh, I do believe it! My initial worry was that the live agent wouldn’t have the privileges to transfer the credit anyway and would tell me to call some department instead.

It’s “quicker” for the bank - while you’re sat there like a numpty listening to musac. It all just reeks of the mess that is legacy banking. Technically archaic, no focus on or ability to improve the customer experience, everything moving at a snail’s pace

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24

Absolutely.

It may be better for the bank, it may be cheaper and actually quicker. It might even be quicker for me, but it’s a terrible experience often enough that for me, as a customer, it’s not my first port of call to phone. It’s all that stuff and more, sometimes complete with being passed from pillar to post around different departments where there is a wait to speak to each and every one!

I do think that part of this preference though might be my understanding of general industry practises, etc. I would know exactly what to type in a chat box to explain my problem. If you get a generic customer query, requiring lots of follow-up messages to get to the nub of the issue, I can see why the back and forth could add delay and make the whole thing far less efficient than if the same happened on the phone.

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25

This is generally approach the NHS is using (or at least supporting/deciding is adequate), to my knowledge.

Source: Friend works for NHS.

If the health service can use it w/ the arguably most sensitive data held in our country aside from government secrets, Lloyds can.

Callbacks are neat, wish Sainsbury’s Bank would implement. Been waddling through a dispute and it’s an hour ordeal every single time, 30 of which is on hold.

Not that they’ve moved along at all. Will be another off to the FoS in short.

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26

It’s a shame Lloyd’s have removed the ability to use chat for corresponding with the bank for help. But I guess call back is good enough as well.

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27

Do they identify themselves somehow? The advice has always been never to trust a call you get from your ‘bank’ and call back instead. I certainly wouldn’t be happy with them calling me

You love complaints, don’t you? :laughing:

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28

I think one of the issues with chat is that companies have staff managing 6-10 chats at one time. That’s when you get the copy and paste replies.

I agree however I much prefer chat or a more honest secure mail system where I don’t need a reply instantly and I know it’s getting some thought behind my query.

The thing about bank calls is not totally right.

“The bank will never call you and ask you to move your money.”

It’s a complete sentence.

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29

To add insult to injury, I just got a call from a number that seems to be Lloyd’s feedback phone line! Blocked by Should I Answer?, but still annoying

30

I’ll see your call and raise you one I got after a branch visit. The disconnect between what the bank wants what customers experience can be huge.

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31

They are too busy to operate live chat, yet have enough spare capacity on their team to cold-call customers asking for feedback?

Something’s not right there!

32

This is 100% an outsourced company to be fair. But regardless what a waste.

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33

I specifically asked NOT to be called in my complaint, so it’s probably a GDPR breach as well sigh

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34

I’ve had similar with a Lloyds Group company before.

I think I complained to either Bank of Scotland or Halifax because I had needed a chequebook, so ordered one, and it had never arrived. I complained that I was told one had been ordered and later told I had to go into a branch to order the first one on an account, so the advice had been wrong.

I specifically said in the complaint that all I wanted was the chequebook ordered and please don’t bother calling me to discuss it, but they called anyway. I was unable to take the call so they followed up with an email.

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35

It sounds petty, but banks would really be wise to treat phone calls as sacrosanct/last resort. It’s a very real intrusion to be called when you’ve specifically asked NOT to be…

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36

I know!

Especially given all their fraud advice about unsolicited calls (and it is unsolicited, if not totally unexpected, when you’ve specifically requested they don’t call).

Sadly banks following their own advice isn’t universal, by any means.

37

They tend to use BOS are a test-bed as it’s customer base is smaller than Halifax or Lloyds.
Mobile app updates are usually first launched on BOS then Halifax and Lloyds.

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38

That’s true.

I’ve noticed the same has happened before with things like notifications appearing there first. The new logout button positioning also appeared there first in a recent update.

But in this scenario, if there really is a crisis on the phones, you would think it would be all hands on deck to deal with it (even though Bank of Scotland does only have a smaller customer base, it doesn’t quite make sense to keep the service just for them?).