Starling Customer Service: Human and innovative

At Starling, we combine the power of human empathy with innovative technology. Our Customer Service agents are on hand to help 24/7 through our in-app chat, by email or finally by phone. Whichever channel you choose, you’ll be able to speak to a human (not a robot) who can help answer your question or listen to your feedback.

As a digital bank, we put technology at our core. It makes contacting us easier and it makes responding to your questions or concerns more efficient. Say goodbye to bank branch visits and crackly hold music. And say hello to 24/7 human, innovative banking with Starling.

Our Customer Service team

“We give everyone the freedom to do the best we possibly can for the customer,” says Customer Service agent Natasha. “We try to resolve a query first time, as quickly as we can. But we can also personally raise a customer question or query with the right team and then respond with an update or additional information, if needed - it’s about quality over quantity.” This approach is partly what earned us the top spot in the Customer Satisfaction survey, published by Which? in November 2020.

Natasha, 21, was among the first to join our Cardiff office in December 2019. We also have contact centres in London and Southampton. Unlike other companies she’s worked for, Starling encourages Customer Service agents to take their time with each individual customer. We also let agents decide when they want to take a break, rather than scheduling these in, and let them swap shifts between themselves.

“Agents aren’t restricted to a timescale - if a customer wants to tell us about their day or what they’re making for dinner, we don’t shut the conversation down.”

Our training

A key part of our training revolves around our tone of voice. “Starling’s tone of voice is exceptionally friendly,” she says. For example, when you receive an email from Starling, it will never start with ‘To whom it may concern’. We prefer to keep it simple and approachable - as well as professional.

“I’ve been in the Customer Service industry my whole career, and of everyone I’ve worked for, Starling engages with customers the best,” says Joel, 27. “People don’t want to be spoken to like robots - they want to have open, honest conversations. Starling does that really well.”

Customer Service agents go through six weeks of training before they start talking to customers on their own. Even then, there are dedicated staff to help agents that have come across an unfamiliar request or need to double check an answer. It’s one of the many team support systems we’ve adapted and continued while our agents are mostly working from home.

Our technology

What makes Starling stand out is our determination to put customers first and our ability to deliver exceptional technology both to customers and staff. “Starling engineers built many of our systems from scratch, which means it’s far easier and more streamlined to access certain information and go back to customers. It’s so easy to navigate compared to other systems I’ve used - everything is there at the touch of a button,” says Natasha.

Joel adds: “There isn’t a question that’s unanswerable. And that’s because we use technology to make sure we can answer whatever a customer asks, as soon as possible.”

Joel joined Customer Service in May 2019 and secured a role in our Customer Experience team last year. “We take customer feedback on board and action it to make each and every product quick and easy,” he says.

“We have a Slack channel called Bright Ideas, which we use to funnel feedback from Customer Service agents. Every week, we go through the suggestions and present a selection to the product team and engineers.”

One example of a recent improvement is the creation of certified bank statements. “It used to be a manual process, but it’s now all done in the app. And that’s as a result of customer feedback coming through us.”

Starling is here for you, wherever you are, whichever account you have with us. Day or night - we’re on hand to help.