10.3 Using and making credit card reviews

Where there are products, there are product reviews and, ideally, you should try to get into the habit of incorporating these into your credit card experience, especially when you compare credit cards.

The good thing about reviews is that they are written by people who have had first-hand experience of the product being reviewed.

The bad thing about reviews is that people will generally only write about a product they have used if they have had a negative experience. The important thing to remember, therefore, is that just because a product has some bad reviews it doesn’t necessarily mean it has been bad for everyone; just as many people could have had really positive experiences but just chosen not to share them.

It is best if you try to look at reviews from more than one source to try to get a more rounded view on how the product has performed for other consumers.

In order to stress the importance of consumers, like you, writing their own reviews, we need you to think about the uncertainties and questions that you come across when comparing credit cards.

• How quickly am I going to receive my card?
• Will my bills be right?
• How will the customer service centre deal with a complaint if I have one?
• How understanding is the card company?
• What happens if my bills are wrong?
• How quickly will the card company rectify mistakes?
• How good are the rewards/offers that come with the card?
• Do the company give you what is promised without hassle?
• How easy will it be to access and understand my bills?
• How reasonable is the APR?
• How good is the card company at helping you in an emergency situation, be it abroad or at home?
• Will the sales staff keep bothering me with unnecessary phone calls and junk mail?
• Will the sales staff be too pushy at trying to get me to buy additional extras such as PPI? Will they take no for an answer?

Now think about how much easier it would be for you to compare credit cards if you had answers to the above questions.

The answer is likely to be ‘a lot easier’ providing you look for credit card reviews from different sources, particularly ones that allow the user to enter in pros and cons as well as general comments, and bear in mind that for every bad review there could be hundreds of happy, satisfied customers.

You may have used reviews before and found them to be very helpful. Bearing this in mind, imagine how difficult your decision-making process would have been without them.

This is why it is very important that you tell other users about your experiences with your credit card, from the application process to long-term customer service.

Reviews don’t need to be long, in fact bullet points are brilliant as they make the information much easier to digest, but will prove to be an asset to future credit card customers even if they just say ‘no problems with this card’ or ‘bad customer service with this card’.

What’s more, credit card companies will likely keep track of what their customers think of their products and use this information to improve both their products and the way they deal with their customers, which can only be good for you as the consumer.

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