Efficiency at Barclays

Barclays Bank has been in the news regularly in the last months and every time it was not exactly positive.
Libor scandal and laundering of criminal money were the most shocking things that popped up.
Here in this part of the city of Norwich the local branch is going to shut down.
So what to do with a small sleeping account in this bank? Cancelling the account is very logical.

We were near the biggest branch of Barclays Bank in Norwich so decided to go in and do this.
On entering we were stopped by a young man. He asked what we wanted in the building. So we told him.
He took us to a lady who was already talking to another couple. She was writing their names down on a pad. Our names were written down too and we were asked to take the lift to the first floor and wait in the waiting area.

The lift was nice and the waiting area existed of a few settees which were comfortable.  Around the waiting area there were workspots where workers of the bank were talking to customers. When they finished with a client they walked downstairs with a notebook. It was soon clear that they had to ask who was next to be dealt with.

                                         Working spot

They would come back and ask that person to follow to a workspot. Things went quite slow; in one workspot there were three guests, one had to stand because there were only 2 chairs for guests.
A lady next to us started complaining about the Bank. She was quite annoyed about how slow they worked.
I suggested internetbanking but she said she hated this. "If help is needed you get the helpdesk in Mumbai and can't understand any of the advice".

After some time a lady with a pad came up to us and asked if we were there. She also asked the name of the person who was standing in the workspot. He leaned over the top and shouted that he was already  being served. The lady assured us that we would be helped soon.

Two people from workspots left after their guests were gone. They didn't return as far as we could notice. The 3 persons in the workspot next to us left and that worker went downstairs. She came back and called our name and we followed her. We explained what we wanted and within a minute everything was taken care of.

We took the lift again. Downstairs long queues were formed in front of the counters. The young man and the lady were still busy writing down names.
We went  out and felt like having an icecream.
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