I am a long time member of the Co-Op bank, which has never let me down (but singing the praises of…read moreone of the few ethical banks on the high street is another matter). This branch is always efficient, rather sedate, none of that high street bank 'crowd' feel. They are rather old fashioned, like banks used to be and you don't feel you are in the grip of a purely commercially motivated enterprise.

Friendly staff, only a small branch but I have never had to wait long in there to be dealt with…read more The staff are fully knowledgeable and have always been able to answer any queries I have had.

HSBC does all the normal things a bank does, but what really struck me when I last went in was…read moretheir poor customer service. If I go in the Halifax and there's a long queue, someone usually comes over and asks me if they can help or shows me a machine I can use. Not so in HSBC. There's always a queue when I go in, and it's very slow-moving. Note: this is for the customer service desk, so if you want to see a advisor. If you want a quick deposit or withdrawal, it's not so bad. I went to open a society account, so we needed to see an advisor as a group. We were told quite impatiently to sit down in the corner and fill out some forms, as if were were wasting their time. They didn't provide pens or any explanation, but we filled them out and waited. And waited, and waited. We were there for over 30 minutes and saw everyone who'd been in the queue behind us go in. Eventually we joined the queue again to ask what had happened and again they looked at us as if we were really causing them an inconvenience. The advisor was much nicer when we did actually speak to him, but the customer service was appalling before that, and it's those people who create the main impression.

Does what you'd expect an HSBC bank to do. I prefer not to go into the bank these days, but if you…read moreneed to the staff at this branch are helpful and friendly, and dont make you feel too small.