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  • Bunq please train your customers service representatives better

As the title says, can the CSs be trained properly on basic fundamentals when it comes to their products?

With the new travel card being offered, this is the second time I'm stuck in private chat having a discussion where none should've been had.

Situation: I have 2 physical cards on my Premium subscription. I get invited to preorder the Travel card, I check the FAQ and it clearly says 'If you have less than 3 cards (or 4 for Joint), then you can order the bun Travel Card for no extra costs.' This sentence (and the whole section where this is a part of) clearly references the amount of physical cards that come with the subscription.

However when trying to order the Travel Card it indicates that I will be charged a €9 fee should I continue with the order. Sure, a bug or something similar can happen. Shouldn't take more than a minute with support, right? Wrong! Again (this happened with the second card I ordered a while back) I'm stuck in some discussion loop with me having to refute weird reasoning by supplying screenshots and official bunq documents (https://www.bunq.com/assets/media/legal/en/20190522_consumers_business_pricing_EN.pdf) while the person on the other end keeps insisting that the digital cards (which not nearly at the 5 max) also count towards the 3 card limit.

This simply isn't the case and honestly I'm kinda sick and tired having to teach bunq's customer representatives something that I shouldn't even have to teach. Worst of all, when confronted with mountains of documentation that either explicitly or implicitly refute their logic, I get a shrug at best and them simply repeating stuff like 'Yes, I know that <name>,but in this case, the cards that count are all your active cards 😊' as if it's some kind of magical mantra.

At times it get's so ridiculous that if you entertain their reasoning and then point out that even according to their reasoning it doesn't add up, they simply move the goalpost. E.g. 'In this case it is not meant to be about physical cards, it means if you have 3 active cards ' ok, sure but the FAQ also indicates 'If you already have 3 cards (or 4 for Joint), you will then need to pay a one-time fee of €9 for production costs. Then when you activate the card, you will be charged an extra €3 per month on top of the monthly fee. If you block or freeze one of the cards, so that you have only 3 active cards in total (or 4 for Joint), then you will not be charged the €3 monthly cost.' so if I entertain your logic that it's solely based on any active cards, physical or not, then why am I still charged the production fee if I freeze all my cards bringing the total active cards down to 0, since the FAQ equates freezing cards to not having them active?

The last time another customer rep had to intervene after almost an hour of back and fort and I got a chocolate bar (a tasty one at that) as a form of apology, but I'd rather this be as painless as possible instead of receiving another chocolate bar. After all, what's the use of an apology if you're going to do the same thing again?

Currently I'm still in the chat, having to deal with the goalpost moving every time I manage to refute whatever new explanation with no end in sight, wondering how long it's going to take this time before the person on the other end realises the reasoning is stretched too thin and something is up.

So bunq, for the love of god, train your customer representatives on your own policy AND train them to stop and think if confronted with your own communication, be it marketing communication or actual legal documentation. Or, if for some weird reason it truly is dependent on the total amount of cards active, physical or digital, then adjust documentation and communication accordingly.

There's nothing more frustrating as a costumer than to have to teach your customer reps on what they should be teaching us.

    Update: after having spend literally two hours, hearing the words 'I have just asked this to my supervisor, virtual cards count for the 3 active cards[…]', and a transfer to a supervisor it has been resolved.

    The last time the whole ordeal took just shy of two hours as well and I'm sorry to say this but if three people, one of which is a supervisor, can't fathom the simple notion '3 physical cards and 5 digital cards are included with a Premium account', causing customers to waste 4 hours instead of the 2 minutes it actually takes to resolve the issue, then there's something seriously lacking with the way bunq is training these people.

      Last update(?): As a matter of full disclosure I should tell that I was just contacted again and after they'v reached out to developers it turned out that the reason why there were issues in the ordering process was because there used to be a third card way back when.

      Still, doesn't change the fact that this could've been indicated without resorting to and insisting on flawed logic and without wasting hours of both party's time.

        Totally agree. This shouldn‘t happen.

          Ik kan niet meer dan beamen wat je hebt opgebracht. Ik heb vanochtend nog moeten vragen naar een ander iemand in support omdat ook ik, keer op keer verkeerde informatie voorgeschoteld kreeg mbt de kosten. Jammer dat ik geen screenshot kan delen hier.

            @Jet-W#93480 Jammer dat ik geen screenshot kan delen hier.

            Afbeeldingen uploaden kan door een long press uit te voeren op het invoerveld, net zoals voor het tevoorschijn toveren van de opties voor kopiëren en plakken.

              @Jet-W#93519 Ridiculous. Don't even know where to start with this. Did they even get one single fact right?

                I think we all can agree on that bunq needs to work on the sequence required to publish a new feature. They certainly don't have to train everybody on the support staff right away, before they release a new feature, but at least the supervisors should be briefed.

                  I just had my first encounter with wrong information from support. I enjoy bunq a lot, but please inform your employees before launching a new feature.

                    @Jakob#93524 No. It even went downhill after that, more wrong assumptions.

                    Once I asked for someone else it was all sorted out within 2 minutes.

                      @Poseidon#93316 Hi 👋🏼

                      Let's face it... it wasn't bunqs best day when it comes down to clear communication. To be completely honest, I unfortunately see a bit of a trend here.

                      Let me first emphasis that I really love bunq ❤️🌈 and all their Support guides. In my experience they always are ready to help and go above and beyond to make us happy. So High Five 👐🏼 on that.
                      But, I also noticed that Support isn't always well informed (on basic things) which results in giving users incomplete or wrong information. It happen to me more then ones and I also have seen some other examples on a regular basis. That is definitely someting to improve (soon). And if I know bunq a bit 🌈, they are probably working on that as we speak!

                      And lets don't forget... here on Together there are also lotsssss of support guides walking around 😉👊

                        Bij een premium lidmaatschap mag je ook premium service verwachten. Bunq wil niemand aan de telefoon en alleen communiceren via de app? Prima, maar zorg dan ook dat men ter zake kundig is.

                          Helaas gaat het niet alleen met dit onderwerp verkeerd bij support, maar bij vele onderwerpen is support slecht of niet geïnformeerd. Het vervelende is zoals TS ook aangeeft, dat er lange discussies ontstaan die überhaupt ongewenst zijn en soms ook nog in he Engels omdat er de laatste tijd geen Nederlands sprekende medewerkers bij het Nederlandse bunq werken.

                          Waar bunq bekend om stond, de kwalitatief goede en vriendelijke support is in rap tempo verdwenen. Zonde!!

                          PS. Is @ali hier überhaupt van op de hoogte?
                          Kan me niet voorstellen dat hij graag zijn geliefde bunq op deze wijze TS grabbel gooit.

                            @Michiell#93611 omdat er de laatste tijd geen Nederlands sprekende medewerkers bij het Nederlandse bunq werken.

                            That's not true. There are. Especially in the second line of support.

                            @Michiell#93611 verdwenen

                            It did not disappear, I can certainly agree that the quality became significantly less last times I needed Support, but they are still very friendly (that never changed) and definitely not all of the quality is gone. I assume there are a bunch of new employees that are not completely up to date yet, which should be fixed obviously, but bunq is aware of it, so I am sure that they are looking into ways to improve. Support is one of the selling points for bunq, now they should try to keep it that way. 😁👍

                            A little offtopic, but, why are we tagging Ali by the way in topics nowadays? A bit unnecessary if you ask me.., there's a Support Team Lead (who's aware, and reporting to Ali as well..) for this.. just my 2 cts though. 🤷‍♂️

                              Same here. Heb 2 kaarten in gebruik, waarvan er 1 ooit ter vervanging van een oude kaart was (een replacement, zoals ze dat noemen). Replacements mogen 1x per jaar plaatsvinden in het abonnement van Premium. Deze vervanging was zelfs al vorig jaar, dus dit jaar nog niet aan de orde geweest. Denk toch echt dat het een bug is als ik het zo zie, aangezien dit bij meer mensen lijkt te spelen.

                              EDIT: Een hele snelle edit, want ik hoewel dit een uur geleden nog speelde, kijk ik nog een keer en kan ik in mijn abonnement nu wel de 3e kaart bestellen. Yay!