barclays

beforethirty.co.uk

find out what the phone number is of barclays rugby branch and post it on here

why?

Because, because, because...

done?

Whilst recently working in London I took an underground train to the hospital I was working at. As I'm sure you are aware, they have lots of adverts running along the tops of the carriages in the trains and one was for the bank Northern Rock. It proudly proclaimed that "We are the bank that hate banking". Well thats just fucking marvelous. What do they like doing - wind-surfing? brewing their own cider? organising new religions? If I hated banking I'd be pretty stupid to set up a large, national bank. All I really want my bank to do is to quickly and efficiently sort stuff out for me... and thats it. Which brings us to Barclays.

I have a number of problems with Barclays, which I'm sure are no different to the problems everyone has with all the major banks. There seems to have been a shift from the bank's ethos of serving you as a customer, to making a concerted effort to make you feel as about important as a dung beetle every time you go in. That is if the branch is ever open for you to go in. Of course, most people work 9-5, Monday to Friday and are therefore not available, so let's keep the banks open for not a minute longer during the week. What time do you get up Saturday? I'll wager around 11am and guess what? Barclays is just shutting.

To be fair, Barclays in Nuneaton and Leicester (which is where I banked before moving to Rugby around three years ago) were great. Great in the way that a premiership behaves to be deemed 'great' - you don't notice them. The Rugby branch has perfectly nice employees (aside from a few) but they seem to have an average age of about 13. The guys that work there have that 'I'm having to wear my Dad's shirt, my school trousers and Clarkes shoes' look going on. The ladies look like the oh-so grown up 16 year old girls, with pierced nails (what the hell is that about?) and two-tone hair. The 13 year old boys are trained to sell you things whenever you go in, whatever you are going in for. A sample conversation between me and a 13 year old Barclay's employee often goes like this:

ME: I'd like to pay this cheque in please

13 YEAR OLD BARCLAYS EMPLOYEE: Sure, that's paid in for you. Can I interest you in a mortgage?

ME: I already have a mortgage

13 YEAR OLD BARCLAYS EMPLOYEE: Ahh, but do you have a good rate?

ME: No, it's at an awful rate. When borrowing half of the NASA space budget I purposefully picked the first mortgage I saw, at a very high rate. Because I'm an idiot. Actually, I'm lying. It is a good rate.

13 YEAR OLD BARCLAYS EMPLOYEE: What rate is it?

ME: 4.7%

13 YEAR OLD BARCLAYS EMPLOYEE: That is a good rate. Ours is 6.9%. Would you like to switch? You get a free key ring.

ME: No.

13 YEAR OLD BARCLAYS EMPLOYEE: Oh. Okay.

But the main problems stemmed from when me and The Em Led went to open our joint account when we first started living together. Up to this point Barclays had been okay with me and as we were trying to sort out somewhere to live the bank we banked with didn't seem to important. As I had an account with Barclays it seemed an easy place to go.

The first annoying thing was when the 16 year old girl who was opening our account asked Emma for her occupation. Emma told her that she was a waitress, which prompted the 16 year old girl look at her as though Emma and myself had just slapped her mother.

"A waitress? Ah well, I'm sure something will come up soon for you".

She actually said that! Cheeky cow. Because as we all know, working behind a customer service desk (or just a 'desk' as I would prefer to call them) requires a Masters in Banking Relationship Studies and a PHD in selling mortgages. Oh wait, I'm lying again aren't I? I'm not going to bore you with the next 8 weeks, but they were pretty horrendous. They did give us quite a bit of compensation though.

Have you ever had to wait to see a Barclays Customer Services person? If you want to do anything more complex than check your balance you have to sit down and wait for someone more qualified (presumably 14 years old) to help you. Barclays Rugby has really long waiting times. We're talking up to 45 minutes to see someone. If someone asked me the best method to solve this I would probably suggest a few more 14 year olds behind the desk. Or maybe an appointment system. Or different method for people to carry out transactions. But as we know from Northern Rock, banks hate banking. So what was Barclay's solution? They turned the chairs that faced the Customer Services People the other way round, so you had to sit with your back to them. Why? I have no idea. Presumably it has some baring on your psychological state and gives you different perceptions of space and time. I dunno about that, but I do know that they get really mad when you turn them back the other way.

Their other technique to 'speed up' the 45 minute wait was to introduce a ticketing system. Which didn't work. Argos were the pioneers of this pointless mind game that many other shops and businesses have now started using. When you venture in to Argos to buy your Elizabeth Duke sovereign rings, England flags for your car, or the eighth TV for your house, you get a number. You can then track your number through a highly complex looking, live animated, TV display, which tracks the exact progress of your order. Has anything changed? Of course it hasn't. Some spotty youth still gets the item out of a shit hole loft upstairs, still puts it on the lift and the confused people on the front line still wander around looking like they've had a lobotomy. But strangly, it does give you the fleeting impression that there is progress. Barclays have used the same strategy. The only difference is that every now and again a 13 year old comes up to ask you whether your query is more complex than what your name is or what town you're in. If it is, he informs you that you have to wait in line for that. He then goes off for a visable fag just outside the back door.

Anyway, enough about Barclays. But I do feel better.

The secretive number for the Rugby Branch is 01788 206000. Don't ring them and give them abuse, as it isn't fair. Ring them up and tell them you're interested in having a chat about mortgage rates which you hear are very competitive, that will get them excited. But I bet they'll still give you a number for a call centre in Mongolia...