| By :
Martin Hofschroer
Santander hopes to improve customer service by launching a recruitment drive across Britain. The Spanish bank will hire 600 new staff to join its growing network of branches and call centres in the United Kingdom after the organisation bought Alliance & Leicester, Abbey and part of what was Bradford and Bingley. Santander has previously been criticised for its levels of service as the banking group posted the lowest score in a bank and building society customer satisfaction survey by consumer group Which? Research by Which? revealed that only 29 per cent of Santander account holders rated the bank's customer service compared to the average score of 52 per cent for other banks. The negative feedback followed a report by the Daily Mail, which discovered that Santander was responsible for a number of mistakes including transferring funds into the wrong accounts, delays processing ISAs and adding incorrect interest. Antonio Horta-Osorio, Santander's UK chief executive, said the bank was employing more people in order to support the organisation's sustainable growth following strong financial results from the first-half of 2010. He said: "This investment demonstrates the success of our strategy, our commitment to customer service, and our ongoing support for the UK economy. "We are continuing to pass on the benefits of being the most efficient UK bank to our customers with more best buy mentions than any UK competitor." Independent journalist David Prosser recently reported that bank customers would prefer good customer service to high interest rates if given the choice. Business correspondent Mr Prosser made this statement after the first branch of Metro Bank was opened in Holborn, central London. Metro Bank pledges to revolutionise banking customer service as they claim that their call centre employees will answer the phone within three rings and that new customers will be able to open an account within 15 minutes. Potential new customer Angela Moore told the Independent that she was attracted to the new bank because of its pledge to improve customer service. She said: "It's the opening hours that have got me interested. Banks around here are disappearing all the time and the queues are horrendous. Neither of us have the internet so we need to be able to walk into a local branch." Santander reported that its pre-tax UK trading profit was up over ten per cent and that it had a 19 per cent gross share of the mortgage market in the first half of the year.
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