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Sophia Exintaris (@eurydice13) – User Experience (UX) Lead

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Tweet customer service – Santander

by eurydice13 on 23 October 2012
0 comments
Time to read: 4 minutes

If you have a problem with your bank, you call them!

No?

Well, I did. But first…

I had a problem with HSBC, so I tried going into the branch to talk to someone. They sent me to the phones. After half an hour, I was told there was nothing they could do, and I should call again in a few weeks. Awesome. Their second mistake (after blatantly not giving a toss about me paying for a dinner twice due to a card malfunction) was to not notice that a) I use twitter and b) I was on High Street Kensington, home of every. single. bank. in the UK.

Before the day was done I had received more than half a dozen recommendations for Santander’s 123 account and had already applied for it online. In less than 5 working days, I had received my debit and credit cards.

On Monday night, I waited on hold to talk to someone about activating my credit card (that’s a first, needing a human and having opening hours for that), I realised that the name on the card was “Eurydice Sophie Ex”. As opposed to “Ms E S Exintaris”. They’d cut off my last name.

Instead of activating the card, I told the person on the line my problem and she said she had re-issued a card with the right name and I should be receiving it within 7 to 10 working days.

Then why, the next day, was the Santander twitter team getting in touch? Ah. Well. I had tweeted my “amusement” after hanging up.

And they asked me to get in touch. I did. This is the email I sent them.

“Hello,

Thank you for catching this on twitter.
My 123 credit card arrived and had my first and middle name on it, but not my last name. (see attached)
I’ve already been in touch and hope to receive a new card in 7 to 10 business days. Given i got the first one in less than five, 7-10 seems unjustified. But anyway.
I am only inconvenienced in that i need to buy my monthly rail ticket and i was going to use your credit card to get it so the 2% discount on rail can pay for the monthly fee of the card. But of course i cannot. So i am stuck buying a weekly one for now, incurring some extra cost as a result, and waiting.
Patience is a virtue, they say. I can be patient. But i entertain myself (and others at times) by publicising such amusing fails on twitter.
You’re not the first entity to try to change my name. You should’ve seen what was going on 13 months ago when I needed to renew my (Greek) passport and they were insisting they had to write my name the way it sounds to them as opposed to how it’s been written in the latin alphabet for 33 years and counting!!
All that to say that i am glad you have been in touch. I look forward to receiving a card with accurate information, and being able to use it for what I intended to.
Kind regards,
S.
“

What I didn’t know was that the twitter team looked into it, emailed me, got some more details, and confirmed that they had to get in touch with me because, well, the person I’d spoken to hadn’t fixed the problem!!

After a short and somewhat jovial / apologetic conversation, I should be receiving my third new card next week, they will happily give me apology money to reimburse the difference of travel cost in weekly tickets vs. monthly tickets (I need to wait a week due to their mistake before buying my monthly rail ticket, thereby paying £10 more for 7 days of travel), as well as a little something extra to show how sorry they were.

Naturally, I was thrilled. I won’t be out of pocket for rail fare differences. I’ll get a bonus cash amount of a small dinner’s worth. And hey! I managed to get something sorted via twitter / email / minimal phone rather efficiently. I also loved how pro-active they were, chasing it up.

Thinking about it, I’d recommend people tweet their banks instead of attempting any other form of communication. And then it dawned on me (following a comment by @ragtag – Karl Roche)… well… what about the unenlightened, disconnected, luddite masses? Whether by choice, circumstance, disinterest or ignorance, a _huge_ percentage of the population is actually *gasp* NOT on twitter.

Why would they be? Most of my friends don’t “see the point of twitter”. I explain to them how cool it is to see South West Trains’ fuse box hit by lightning, find a flight home after your original one is cancelled due to snow, and being saved from sad circumstances thanks to a hashtag. They all at least smile. But I have yet to see any of them properly active on twitter. It does take a while. I know. It did for me too. Thing is. It’s completely worth it.

If you enjoyed the read, please pass this on! Thank you.

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Tagged account, bank, credit card, email, phone, santander, social, twitter

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I’m still alive!

... I write whenever I have something to share, which recently hasn't been that often.

If it's been quiet, it might be because my alter-ego, Seamstress Sophie, has been busy making things.

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Last 5 books I read

Sophia's bookshelf: read

The Body: A Guide for Occupants
it was amazing
The Body: A Guide for Occupants
by Bill Bryson
The Artful Dickens: The Tricks and Ploys of the Great Novelist
liked it
The Artful Dickens: The Tricks and Ploys of the Great Novelist
by John Mullan
If In Doubt, Wash Your Hair: A Manual for Life
it was amazing
If In Doubt, Wash Your Hair: A Manual for Life
by Anya Hindmarch
The first two chapters talked so much about parenthood i wondered if it would switch to something else. It did. A wonderful lessons learned / memoir / story / voice. Absolutely worth reading or better yet listening to as it is narrated b...
Creativity: A Short and Cheerful Guide
it was amazing
Creativity: A Short and Cheerful Guide
by John Cleese
Wonderful!!! Wish it was lengthier :) really enjoyed it.
The Art of the Good Life
it was amazing
The Art of the Good Life
by Rolf Dobelli

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