Ian Highton, partner at Leicestershire-based Essential Financial Advisers, expressed his dissatisfaction on Twitter at not being able to get through to Virgin Money and was surprised to receive an email from the lender within 10 minutes of the post.
Highton said he required an urgent response to a case which fell in between the gaps of Virgin’s criteria but had queued without success on its call centre line for over 20 minutes before hanging up.
He said: “With the completion date fast approaching it was imperative that I spoke to a senior underwriter to discuss the nuances of the case which fell outside normal underwriting procedures.
“I had tried my business development manager and the usual telephone number for the call centre but I could not get through to anyone.”
Highton received an email shortly after posting the tweet in which he used Virgin Money’s Twitter username @Virginmoney which offered him an alternative number to try. He was then able to escalate his concerns and received a call from his BDM within half an hour who put him direct contact with a senior underwriter.
Highton added: “After hitting numerous stumbling blocks with my application I received an offer within four days after using Twitter to bypass the traditional channels of communication to get the result I needed for my client.”
A spokesman for Virgin Money said: "We offer a range of contact channels for brokers and customers, including social media channels, so they can choose the way to contact us that suits them best.
“On this occasion Twitter was the channel that the broker used to raise the issue just as other brokers use our intermediary support line or the BDM team. All these channels of contact are equally important for us."
