M and S Leave You A Loan (Marks & Spencer Financial Services)

Member Name: lwperkins

Product:	Marks & Spencer Financial Services
Date:	06/05/03 (1575 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Hassle Free, Excellent Customer Care

Disadvantages: None

Anyone familiar with my regular musings about soap and body lotion may be rather alarmed that I have ventured into such 'grown up' territory and be more than a little concerned about trusting my word on all matters financial.
Well, to be honest I wouldn't trust my word on anything of such importance either so I'm not going to pretend I've developed financial advisor credentials overnight.
I'm going to tell you about the service I received from Marks and Spencer Financial Services purely from a customer point of view.
Any financial whiz kids out there please feel free to abandon this op in favour of one with a little more product knowledge. I won't be offended...

About 18 months ago I moved back to the UK having spent some time living in France and found myself in a tricky situation financially. It was entirely my own fault and I should have seen it coming but I didn't (too much wine and croissants clouding my judgement!)
Problem was this financial situation needed sorting out quickly and I didn't know what to do.

The idea of getting a loan seemed ridiculous and rather scary. I've never had anything like it before and as I mentioned as far as financial services go, I haven't a clue. I have a current account and a savings account and a couple of store cards but I don't manage then with any skill, just rather haphazardly (any financial whiz kids who haven't gone off in search of a more knowledgeable op are no doubt wincing at the thought of my lack of money sense, but I'm quite sure I'm not the only person who gets bamboozled by the massive variety of financial products currently on the market.)

I don't own my own home and I didn't really want to go to my bank (they scare me!) so I set about looking on the Internet for some advice.

I didn't even realise that Marks and Spencer offered a Financial Services section - I knew they offered a store card
but then so do Dorothy Perkins and you can't ask them for a loan! (Well, I suppose you could ask, but I doubt the answer would be a resounding yes!)

When I found the Financial Services section on the Marks and Spencers web site, I was reassured by how clearly explained everything was and by how easy to navigate round it was.
I liked the fact that I could arrange a loan from the comfort of my own home without having to even speak to anyone.
But I was still a little put off by the very fact that it was Marks and Spencers. They do great knickers, granted but is that necessarily a top criteria for being a good loans provider?

I spent a little more time looking round their web site and found that they offered a diverse range of financial services, not just loans.
They offer Store Card facilities, travel money, investments, life assurance, insurance and pensions.

The loans section allowed me to work out how much I could afford to borrow and what would be the best loan for my circumstances.

I decided to apply and received an instant decision (the man from Del Monte he say yes!!) but I was informed that I still had time to change my mind - I hadn't signed my life away to some big unmanageable proposition.

The repayment amounts were very manageable and the APR was good (apparently - like I say these things don't mean very much to me.) It's changed of course since I took out my loan, but its still one of the most competitive on the market.

And that was it. It was as simple as that. I signed my paperwork and a couple of days later the money was transferred into my account. I set up a Direct Debit and every month my repayment is taken out without me having to worry about remembering to pay it.

But the best thing about Marks and Spencer finance is the fact that they have never bothered me. I've never received phone calls or letter offering me other services. It's great not to be
hassled. I bank with Natwest and they are forever phoning me up trying to push extra services on me so this makes a welcome change.
If I have a problem I'm more than capable of ringing to sort it out - I don't see how ringing me up all the time to check I'm a happy bunny constitutes good customer service. In fact it makes me an unhappy bunny!! So full marks to Marks for that!

As for the customer service aspect, this is where they excel and it is my main reason for writing this op.
I have always had 100% customer focused service in all of my dealings with them.
When I ring up with a query the staff actually sound like people, ready and happy to help. It makes a lovely change from bored call centre robots. I never get the feeling that on the other end they are reading from a script whilst filing their nails or picking their nose.

Email contact provides equally high levels of customer service - I have always had a reply within 10 minutes of sending emails to them and not just the cut and paste 'thank you for your enquiry' emails that everyone gets - responses tailored to your specific query. Whenever I have had to contact them, I have been fully satisfied that my query has been dealt with properly and professionally.

When I applied for the loan I hadn't planned on leaving my job to go to University and obviously I was really worried about how I would make the repayments every month, but on contacting them to discuss my circumstances I found them to be helpful and supportive.

I have just one payment left to make on my loan and I can honestly say I can think of no bad points to my dealings with Marks and Spencer finance. Although I hope to never find myself needing their help again (I've laid off the red wine and croissants now so any further financial disasters should hopefully be avoided) I wouldn't hesitate to use them again and I don't hesitate in recommending their services to any
one on the look out for a loan, especially if like me you want the simplest possible deal and are somewhat bank phobic!

You can find their web site at www.marksandspencer.com or some stores have leaflets available with the range of their services.

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