Now that's how to do Customer Service!

[Steve Maskery]

We used to have a bank in our local town. Well, population decline has meant that it is now classified as a village (<2000 residents). The bank closed in January and our account was tranferred to a branch half an hour away.

We had got to know the staff and they knew us and our circumstances. The two ladies we usually dealt with, Aurore and Nadia, were great. They spoke decent English, so when we ran out of French words we could say it in English. So between us, a bit of Francais, a bit of Anglais and a lot of Franglais, we understood each other well.

At the new branch, they don't know us and we don't know them. No-one speaks much English (at least, none that I have met, though I'm told they are getting an English-speaking specialist in, don't know when). I emailed my new handler last week, explaining that I would like an output of all our transaction from 1.1.25 to 31.1.25, in .CSV format so that I could fiddle about with it in Excel. I could do it in the App, but only from May1, I needed from Jan1. The App promised me a same-day reply. Well that didn't happen, but the following day I got this reply:

"Hello Mr Maskery. You can do that in the App. Cordialement".

Harrumph.

In the App I can go back 12 calendar months and that's it. I said so.

"You need to come into Branch"

So Thursday morning I went into Branch. As I say, it is a 1hr round trip. No Staff were available, but there was a printout of a PDF file with all the relevant transactions waiting for me. Not what I wanted and the young lady on the front desk had no idea how to generate the PDF file, only open the one prepared for me.

I left very unsatisfied.

So I emailed Aurore, who now works miles away, but for the same bank. Within 6 hours I had this response:

"Hello Mr. Maskery,

I'm delighted to hear from you!

I have just reviewed your request but I see that I can only go back one year... Can the attached document help you?

I'm on holiday from tonight and I'll be back on Tuesday (a loooong weekend feels good )

I'll call you on Tuesday if that doesn't suit you...

Have a good weekend and say hello to Sheila for me!"
Sincerely,
Aurore"

OK, I still don't have my .CSV file, the file she sent was just the same as I already had, but, even though we are no longer her responsibility, she was as helpful as she could be at that particular moment, she remembered who we were, and I know she will be in touch after the long weekend.

Kind, prompt and personal, that is how you keep happy customers.

S

 

[Malc2098]

WoW That's great.

I think there might be an import method to get data from pdf into excel. Might be worth exploring.

 

[Dr.Al]

I think there might be an import method to get data from pdf into excel. Might be worth exploring.

LibreOffice Calc can import PDF files. It'll be more hassle than importing a CSV but it might work if the PDF format isn't too weird.

 

[Steve Maskery]

Ooh, I shall have to investigate that, thank you. I use OpenOffice. I'm not a whizz at spreadsheets, just basic number-crunching, really. Currently doing our tax return...
S

 

[RogerS]

Ooh, I shall have to investigate that, thank you. I use OpenOffice. I'm not a whizz at spreadsheets, just basic number-crunching, really. Currently doing our tax return...
S

Tax return ? What's one of those ?

 

[AndyP]

Tax return ? What's one of those ?

An horrendously complicated bloody nuisance is what that is here.

 

[Inspector]

An horrendously complicated bloody nuisance is what that is here.

Not too bad here unless you have lots of complicated investments or a business etc. They always correct it anyway if I forget a slip or enter the wrong amount. They know exactly what I have before I do so it is just a formality anyway. I bet they know when I'll be dying so the certainties of death and taxes are covered. Just going along for the ride.

Pete

 

[Steve Maskery]

Here it is complicated by the fact that all our income is in GBP, but all our taxation is in EUR.

There are two ways of calulating the exchange rate. We can check the rate on every day we receive our pensions and do it separately for each transaction, or we can use the "average" exchange rate for the year for our total income.

The problem is that they calculate the Average by taking the rate on 1.1.25 and the rate on 31.12.25, add them together and divide by two. It takes no account of what happens to the exchange rate in between. So I have done the day-by-day calculation and compared it to the Average. The difference isn't huge, hundreds rather than thousands, but it is in our favour to do the day-by-day. Hence the spreadshet stuff.

Different incomes attract different tax rates. State pensions are taxed at one rate, work pensions at a different rate. They have to go in different boxes. This year it is all online and I need help.

You do have to be a bit careful when you start moving columns about. At one point my spreadsheet reckoned that I had an income of nearly 90K. Er, no. I wish. I'd double-counted quite a lot. All too easily done, unfortunately.

S

 

[fuse]

Tax return ? What's one of those ?

" its only illegal if you get caught "