It’s interesting to see who reads the site. A huge well done for on-the-ballness today to Ian Barber, the head of PR at Barclaycard. My ‘Barclaycard loophole article’ was published over the weekend in short form in the Sunday Express and in detail here. Then this afternoon, I did what I always do, and checked the ‘feedback’ from the article, as often MoneySavers have questions or valid points.
In there was a note saying “the rate’s gone up from 5.9% to 6.9%”. Of course this is very annoying, after diligently researching, working it through and publishing for a rate change on the day – hmmmf.
So I immediately called Ian to be greeted by “you’re going to ask me if the rate’s changed to 6.9%. I’ve read the feedback too, I’ve already put a call in to our product team, they’ll get back to me soon and I’ll tell you.”
It turns out they have switched the rate. To be fair to Ian, he didn’t know (as the whole article is about a ‘hidden deal’, these aren’t the type of things companies talk about) but was quick enough to make sure he checked it out and found out. If only they were all like that. Barclaycard may have a usually pants product, but it’s pretty good at the communication side.
PS. My worst ever memory of a purile PR person was the call two days after my ‘Deal of the Week’ on the cheapest share dealing service which was a flat £7 per deal. The PR said “I see you’ve just written about a share service. Well my client’s just launched a new one, why don’t you cover it next week?”
Turns out this new offer was £15 per deal – so this call was to say “please repeat your article on exactly the same subject to recommend the company that’s twice as expensive as your recommendation. I won’t print my reply here. The language was colourful, but the “which bit of the title Money Saving Expert don’t you understand?” was included, and needless to say whenever that PR is on the phone now, I tend to be too busy to talk!
