More Santander - (Or less?)

[XFool]

Appointment-only late afternoon banking at Santander

BBC News

Santander is cutting the opening hours of its branches and only allowing pre-booked face-to-face appointments in the late afternoon.

[DrFfybes]

I saw that - they're basically going back to the old fashioned bank opening times and closing at 3 rather than 4:30, and on Sat afternoons. However if you can't get there during those times, there is a number you can call and they will book you in.

I think it is a soft approach to reducing hours, to see how much demand there is for the later services, before using it to reduce hours and restructure staffing.

Paul

[BobGe]

Banks don't want to provide service, they want account holders to do all the work themselves and they want to charge account holders (one way or another) for using their IT.

[pje16]

Santander have been anti customer facing for years
Over 10 years ago I had been abroad and my Santander card was blocked owing to unusual activity and I was asked to come into a branch to get the block lifted
On my return home I went into my local branch and they would not see me then, as I did not have an appointment
I would like to point out there were no other customers in the branch at that time
How ridiculous, they don't exactly make you feel welcome

[gryffron]

It used to be worse. We had 2 santander branches in town. If you went into the wrong one they couldn’t help you at all. Ex-Different building societies of course, but no hint on the outside which you should visit. Incompatible systems, identical branding.
I closed my account and haven’t touched them since.

Gryff