My good news from Santander

My business bank account is with Santander.  I'm not sure why to be honest other than it seemed like a good idea at the time.

Service has been average - not bad but certainly not good.  I once visited a local branch to request a transaction and whilst they did so, they told me four times that business customers can't transact at a branch counter and so they were only doing it on this one occassion as a gesture of goodwill.  Once would have been enough!

A couple of days ago I received a letter from Santander informing me that they "are delighted to announce that in addition to your existing banking services, we are starting to introduce counter access for our Business Banking customers."  It went on to confirm that I will be able to complete transactions at "your local Santander Branch.  At this time, the branch detailed ...is the only one that will be able to process your business banking transactions.  However, we are looking to extend this in the future and we will obviously let you know when this happens."

I don't know what Santander believe 'local' means but the branch they've suggested I use doesn't feel very local to me.  In fact a search on the Santander website confirms that 12 branches and a further 6 Agency branches are closer to where I live than the branch concerned!

Is this really worth promoting as good news?  Do they expect me to be delighted that I can now drive 17 miles to transact over the counter?  Have they considered how this might be received by customers, or is their focus so internally driven that they can't see it?  I wonder....

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