Nathaniel would be proud: Natwest reward loyal customers

Last night after weeks of late nights and tension Hubbie's loyalty to the San Francisco Giants was rewarded when they won the World Series. The zombie who has been occupying the house with us for the last month or so - when he's not at work - may well disappear now. After a 30 year losing streak the Giants won the World Series when our son was a few weeks old. The baby used to snooze next to Hubbie who would take him downstairs so I could rest after the night feeds. You see as well as being a great husband Hubbie is also a loyal sports fan. He supports a non-league football team whose performance is so poor that I rarely even ask how they have done any more. I just make sure that there is something nice to eat when the boys get home on a Saturday evening after travelling to deepest darkest wherever to watch them play. 

You see loyalty is a big thing to us as a family. I've known most of my friends for yonks. The most recent good friend I have has at least 10 years tenure and even acquaintances have served at least 4 years (since I had my son). I don't do new friends often as it takes time to 'break them in.' When I'm good friends with someone I'm proper loyal. I'd known one of my friends for around 5 years and we were in my car sitting in Notting Hill Carnival traffic on the way to pick up a Chinese take away. I apologised for the traffic and my friend said, "Don't apologise, driving with a good friend to pick up Chinese food is my idea of a great time." (I may have paraphrased there) I felt all warm inside as up until that point I wasn't sure if we were good friends or not. That sealed it for me and we have been firm friends since.


Loyalty applies to so many things for me. I've only changed hairdresser if they've physically left the country. I travel a long to way to the same dentist I've been going to for donkey's years out of loyalty. When someone tells me they have had a bad experience somewhere I will boycott it out of loyalty to them. There are places I haven't been to just because they have been rude to someone I care about ! 
I like to reward good service so even though it's sometimes a bit more of a faff I'll continue to use a company I know and trust. I also like to share good experiences so I will tweet to thank a company that have been really great and email to say that someone has been really helpful to me too. It's far too common that people complain about poor service, so I like to balance that out with praise when they get it right.  

Well, can you imagine my frustration when as a loyal customer I see a new customer getting far more than I did when I joined and I don't get the same deal because I'm now 'old news.' Ooh that makes me cross. It happens with phone companies, retailers and banks. Apparently customers are more likely to move house than to move bank so they have to do a lot to upset us enough to move, but it does happen. 


Natwest have listened to customers saying that this isn't fair and are waving goodbye to offers that only apply to new customers in favour of fairness to all. The Hello / Goodbye campaign rewards loyalty by offering the same deals to existing as well as new customers. This little experiment was filmed to show how it feels to be sidelined as an 'old customer' for 'new shiny' ones.

So Natwest are calling time on offers only for new customers and rewarding loyalty from those of us who like to stay put. As someone who has had an account with Natwest dating back to when I collected the ceramic pigs - yes I do still have them - that's great news.

Disclosure: I’m working with BritMums and NatWest to promote the Hello/Goodbye campaign and have been compensated for this post. All opinions are my own (as always).