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Wouldn’t it be great if only a phone call away there really was a specialist small-business adviser who knew what you were trying to achieve and had the experience and know-how to help? Setting up and running your own company can be a lonely business. At least that’s what the ubiquitous adverts for small-business banking services constantly proclaim. Wouldn’t it be great if only a phone call away there really was a specialist small-business adviser who knew what you were trying to achieve and had the experience and know-how to help?
Wouldn’t it indeed? But, like a lot of things, slick advertising can portray a very different picture to the real thing. New businesses, the ads tell us, need hard work, long hours and a dedication to getting things off the ground. I remember an old banking advert that showed a tired, young self-starter leaving his bakery business on a dark evening and throwing the keys to his premises into the river in frustration. That guy needed a small-business adviser to reassure him – someone who had seen countless other people surmount similar problems and make successes out of their business. But would he be able to get through to one in today’s business advice world, dominated, as it is, by automated messages and offshore call centres?
I set up a freelance writing business in 2005. Nothing fancy: just one man, his computer and a bunch of contacts from 17 years in newspapers. A newly-engaged accountant advised a limited company status as the most efficient structure. That needed a company bank account and there the fun started.
When the first cheques arrived, I made a routine appointment at the Big Four bank I had used for the previous 23 years to open a company account to pay them into. Two hours later, I had an account – and a load of bumpf trying to sell me everything from investments to will-making services. Then I awaited the proud moment of paying in my first earnings. The bank is now closed. Not a good start.
That little conundrum was overcome by my new business banker offering to stash my cheques in his desk and pay them in the next morning. Nice to find a bank prepared to break the annoying little rules that handicap those who never intend to breach them. Shame I never found it again.
The problems took time to emerge. The bank’s internet service was terrific. Transferring funds at midnight can be fun. But after six months, the business banker called to make a routine appointment and there the trouble started.
I had a busy day and could not make it, so called the personalised number I had been given for my new friend. But this was not personalised at all. A couple of automated messages later and I had lots of new pals in Bangalore – none of which could put me through to my branch. “Don’t worry,” I was told politely. “We’ll pass on the message and get your branch to call you.” And they did. But when the call arrived, it was a voicemail message stating that the branch had received a garbled message it couldn’t understand from its Indian call centre. If I would be kind enough to call India again, it could call my local branch, which would then phone me again. This wasn’t ideal, especially when the voicemail arrived four hours after I was supposed to be at the branch. So much for my efforts to let the bank know. My frustrations got worse. I received a letter informing me I was not allowed to have a cheque guarantee card for my business since it was a limited company (nobody had seen fit to advise me of this beforehand). I went into the bank to see someone about it (not wanting to dial India again to make an appointment I couldn’t keep). Nobody could see me, but a clerk kindly gave me a direct dial number. “This will get you straight through to the branch in future,” she smiled. It didn’t. Hello again, Bangalore.
The guarantee card was a problem, since one of my regular business expenses was with a transport operator that insisted on payment by cash or cheque. I telephoned repeatedly and finally reached someone who parroted back bank policy to me and said no exceptions could be made. I threatened to move my account. “Where to?” came the reply. “All the other banks have the same rule.”
I rang them to check. They didn’t. Alliance & Leicester saw no reason why I should not have a business account cheque card. All I had to do was move my account, but moving company accounts is not easy. The bank needed a copy of my company’s incorporation certificate. That needed to be certified by a local solicitor to guarantee its authenticity. The bank also needed a letter from my accountant. I didn’t know whether I could be bothered: whenever I had any spare time from arguing with my bank, I still had a business to run, didn’t I?
How did this tale resolve itself? How do you think? I wish I could say that the wheels of bureaucracy were given oiled by the natural democracy of customer power, but they were not. I spoke to the bank’s press office. That, of course, worked a treat. I received a call from the regional director the following day. Cheque guarantee cards could not be issued to limited companies, he explained, because there was, in theory, no limit on the number of £50 cheques they could write that the bank would have to honour.
Could it not make an exception? It could not, but it did find me a personal banker, an engaging and willing character who gave me her mobile phone number and said I could call any time (I’ve yet to test this flexibility). She also arranged another two-hour advice session during which my potential needs were explored. Did I need libel insurance, for instance? An interesting question: I had no idea it was available. What about pensions, life assurance policies and critical illness cover? I came away with an envelope of brochures too big for my briefcase.
She may even have found a solution to my transport problem. “Why don’t you phone the company and ask if it needs help with its payment systems?” I joked. The next time I bought a 12-journey pass, I was suddenly able to pay with my business credit card.
If only everyone could call a press office. If my experience is anything to go by, all the talk of banks trying to help new small businesses is just talk.
“The typical bank receives about 30 million telephone calls a year,” said Marcus Hickman, of consultancy Henley Centre. “The only way they can handle them is via automated systems and call centres.” Perhaps. But it does not seem too much to offer small businesses a direct line to their branch and an adviser they are allowed to call. At least, those adverts are right: setting up and running a small company is a lonely business, especially when your bank does not answer your call. Biography
Andrew Cave is a freelance business writer who pens the weekly City Life column in The Daily Telegraph and conducts the paper’s Monday Business interview. He previously worked for nine years on the paper as associate City editor and spent three years in New York as US business correspondent. Cave started his journalistic career at the Oxford Mail and Times regional newspapers.
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