JEFF PRESTRIDGE: A deal at last, now let’s focus on the UK’s growth

At last, after four and a half years of brinkmanship and tortuous negotiations, we have a post-Brexit trade deal – for better or for worse.

Although not all the i’s have been dotted and not all the t’s crossed, it means that we can now head into the New Year with a little bit more confidence in our economy’s prospects than appeared to be the case a week ago.

Perhaps, the deal will prevent in the future the sort of disruption we saw at Dover.

It should also allow the Government to turn its full attention to getting the nation vaccinated against the vicious poisonous snake that is Covid-19. Only once this snake is beheaded can we truly start to piece our economy together again and move into growth mode.

Of course, the Brexit deal will have implications that maybe we haven’t given much thought to as we remain marooned in the UK for the foreseeable future. For sure, it will drive up travel insurance costs and remove our right to free medical care provided by the European Health Insurance Card.

These issues, I am sure, will drive much of our personal finance coverage in the weeks ahead. The deal, I am sure, will also impact on the UK stock market.

Although the FTSE 100’s reaction to the news on Thursday was lukewarm, I am with those wealth experts who believe the UK stock market could well flourish in 2021.

Bad customer service…

In a year when lockdown has disrupted our social and working lives, and technology has come to the fore, good customer service – telephone or online based – has become increasingly hard to find.

Whether it’s speaking to your bank or energy supplier about an issue that you want resolved, long waiting times for calls to be answered have become the norm.

Indeed, many callers – myself included – have had to have the patience of a saint in order to stay on the phone long enough for someone to answer.

The longest wait to speak to my bank was 25 minutes, not helped by interminably bad music being piped down the phone while I hung on for a human to speak to. But nowhere has customer service deteriorated more alarmingly than at National Savings & Investments, the Government’s savings arm.

It’s an issue my colleague Rachel Rickard Straus brought to the nation’s attention in September – and despite assurances from NS&I boss Ian Ackerley that things would get better, they haven’t.

According to readers, correspondence still isn’t being responded to promptly, requests for bonds to be sold are taking an age to carry out – and trying to get through on the phone is a joke.

The extent of the turmoil has now attracted the attention of Mel Stride, chairman of the Treasury Select Committee.

He has written to Mr Ackerley asking him to explain why NS&I’s back office has descended into chaos, triggering a surge in complaints and a plunge in customer satisfaction levels.

NS&I intends to respond in the New Year. But given the mess it is in, it might be spring before Mr Ackerley puts pen to paper.

… And good customer service

Finally, in the joyous spirit of Christmas, I want to focus on the wonderful customer service I have received this year from those working for businesses close to my office in West London. Service that convinces me that the high street is far from dead.

They all work in or run shops and cafes that have been financially challenged by lockdown and by constant changes to the Covid tiering system.

Yet despite everything thrown at them – including the threat of fines for inadvertently ‘breaking’ Covid rules – they have delivered service par excellence.

So to Jonas and Pedro at Pret A Manger, Meriem at Montparnasse Cafe (cakes to die for), and Jasmina and Mawaheb at card shop Scribbler, thank you for delivering customer service with beaming smiles.

Provided we don’t go into national lockdown again – and in the case of Scribbler tier 4 restrictions are lifted – I’ll be back in the New Year.

To these stars of the high street and to all our wonderful personal finance readers, a happy and safe New Year.