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Every. Single. Call. Since COVID no less. Weird. Even the doctors. Still.
I call lazy bullshit, understaffing and too many middle management . Far far far too many. 1 manager for every 10 people because you can't trust the people you employ to do the job you pay them for.
If only there was another way.
Virgin media are still using the line "due to these unprecedented times"
I think by now they are pretty precedented. Hire more calls centre staff you cheap fucks.
I've just had an email to tell me they're putting up prices by nearly twice the rate of inflation. No apology, just essentially an email saying "hey, we'd like more of your money, so we're going to be taking it".
This has prompted me to get off my ass and switch providers, which in all honesty I should have done ages ago.
They're not *that* bad if everything works. Customer service is pretty terrible, so if anything breaks it's a nightmare getting it sorted. But it rarely goes wrong, so it's all good.
My only problem with them is price. Now I'm out of the "discount period", I'm essentially being charged £75 a month for shit TV, decent speed internet, and a landline I don't want, with no option to get it any cheaper now I'm no longer a "new customer".
To be honest, if I ring up to cancel and they offer to half the price, I'd stay with them to save the hassle of switching. So don't let me put you off moving to them.
As for who I'd move to, I haven't even thought about it yet, I'm lucky enough to be spoilt for choice around here, so it's not really an issue.
Fwiw that's my experience of them too. Decent speeds, no data caps, awful customer service but in the 10 years I was with them I only ever needed their customer service once (twice if you count calling to cancel) when our neighbours had their garden redone and the company doing it cut through the cable to both houses.
But the price increased year on year way above inflation and all of their promotions are new customers only. As I said I went from 500mbit at 60 quid a month to gigabit for 30 quid a month from an FTTP provider (Vodafone) and that includes a static IP, too.
I think the issue is high turnover, when I worked for a pension provider they said that out of four new hires in the call centre only one would stick around.
Again that comes down to investment through, spend a little more money and they might become nicer places to work and people might stay. A happier workforce becomes more productive and you end up with more experienced staff who can solve customer problems, actually solve them! And better customer outcomes means more customers and better retention.
Making your support a race to the bottom makes it worse for everyone except the manager whose bonus is dependent on cost cutting.
Ironic given Martin Lewis is telling people to phone up mobile phone companies to get better deal, often the prices are set and agents only have some wiggle room with prices. But you get Marjorie calling up wanting the new iPhone for the same price as her iPhone 5 and then argues because martin lewis told her she could get a deal.
I think you're targeting the wrong people with your criticism here.
Martin Lewis has provided so much value and advice - particularly over recent times. Weekly he highlights free services, tricks to avoid paying full price, deadlines which should not be ignored, savings advice, how to save money on utilities etc
Good luck to Marjorie but I hope she sees sense and gets an Android
Marjorie misunderstood and haggled on the device plan then, not the data plan. They absolutely have leeway to lower prices.
I got my phone with three, I knew I was going to go with them because the overall price I'd pay in total was the cheapest with them but it didn't mean I wasn't going to try and go further. They offer me a data plan of £20 and I said sorry it's too much, so they offered me £18. I said no it's too much and miraculously after a couple of minutes it was £16. I knocked 4 quid off a month in a few minutes. They would rather knock a bit off than risk losing the entire sale.
If you happen to call a company and they don't negotiate prices, well tough shit that's not Martin's fault, he's giving general advice not specific and he's only telling you to try. If you're already on the cheapest plan you're on the cheapest plan.
A bit rude to try and disprove all the good he's done with some hypothetical that didn't even happen.
Except it did happen. My wife worked in ee sales for 5 years and got these calls daily. The price plans are prebuilt they do have some wiggle room but not much, and often, they couldn't match other competitors this meant she often got abused as they claimed she just didn't want to do it. Then you have the people who don't understand that sky is cheaper because its over 3 years yet ee is 2 years.
I'm glad she isn't in that job anymore as it destroyed her mental health having to deal with these type of calls every day.
None of that is Martins fault, he shouldn't give any advice because some people are shitty? If people don't understand one plan is 3 years and one is 2 it's because they're stupid, not because of Martin.
Downvote me all you want but it still isn't Martin's fault lol. I worked at eon, I got all the "Martin Lewis said this" hurled with abuse as well, but I don't blame the man for their intolerance to keep a lid on their emotions. It's pathetic you're blaming a man who gives class advise to many people because ur wife was shouted at.
As you said yourself, people can call and agents can 'wiggle' prices, so you're not even saying his information his wrong, just blaming him for others people's actions.
"Your call is inconvenient to us. Please hang up so we don't have to deal with your issue. If you choose to stay on the line, we will make your wait as long and frustrating as possible to punish your insolence."
You don't have this problem when you try to phone Birmingham city council, as they hide their phone numbers so it's extremely difficult to find them, and voila, they can say that they don't have long queues .
Not really relevant but I have already small business and we shut down our phone liens during COVID. We were researching how to distribute customer service calls to staff at home and realised hardly anyone called us any more, less than one a day.
It's funny when we get the bi-yearly epic complaint from a customer about "how dare we not have a phone number" when they're literally the only person who would've called over the last few months. But on the other hand the benefits of not having a phone number are greater.
After repeatedly being forwarded to a bot that was unable to address my issue, I eventually called the switchboard of my local council directly and asked them point blank how to speak to a human. They sheepishly admitted that if you just do nothing at the prompts eventually you'll get transferred.
I've left the company now, so I can absolutely tell you about their BS. I used to work as an outsourced call centre for them on their emergency OOH line for social services. Sometimes their day staff would tell people to call specifically after their lines shut knowing there was absolutely FUCK all we could do. They had a convoluted 4 page document of questions we had to fill in every call so would take half an hour but only paid us for 10 minutes.
The absolutely worst bit was though I had Police call me reporting child abuse and you had to call their dedicated in house team. I was on hold for 45 minutes, woman came on the phone munching food apologising saying she'd just finished her lunch break. But she was one of 2 people on that night... it was hell. And they specifically hid internal numbers so that everyone would call us.
I worked in a call centre years ago.
Lots of calls would start with a rant about how long they’d been on hold, delaying the queue.
I had to confirm the caller’s ID with 3 questions. It should have taken about 45 seconds, but people would moan about doing it, delaying the queue.
Half the time they wouldn’t have any references ready, so I had to find their details the long way, delaying the queue.
Then I’d give them an answer they didn’t like (‘no, I’m afraid I can’t waive any charges, as your account has already had the last three taken off’), then they’d rant about what a useless bitch I was, delaying the queue.
Then they’d demand to speak to a manager, of which we had one for 30 staff, who would then say the same thing I did, delaying the queue.
Ah. I am forever grateful I will never be in that line of work again.
It broke my wife. They changed her commission told her wouldn't notice the difference. She made 5 new connections and 4 broadband one month made 400 in bonus. The next month after bonus change she made 7 new connections and 3 broadband and got 210 in bonus.
There was also the prices they couldn't change but people had unrealistic expectations and wanted new phone worth about 1000 quid for 10 pm. Got all sort of abuse, constantly under pressure to hit unrealistic targets, managers on huge ego trips for 1.5k more a year.
I never understand people who are shitty to call centre staff. It's not their fault if the managers understaff the place, and being a dick to the person you do speak makes it less likely they'll put effort into helping you. It's one of those nice situations where being a decent person is not only the right thing to do, but also the best for everyone involved.
I am going to suggest that if employers employed enough staff to *prevent* people having to wait in long queues, and compounding it by lying to those customers that todays long wait is unusual rather than the norm, then there would be a *lot* fewer angry customers when their call does actually get answered. But, of course, doing that might mean that at quieter times, shock horror, some staff *have no calls to answer*!!! and to a certain managerial mindset, such idleness (/s) is anathema.
I fairly recently switched banks, from one that used the "unusually high volume" lie every time I had to call them^1, to one that is advertising quite heavily at present, and my experience is that the advertising is surprisingly accurate. Whenever I have called, my cally has been answered quickly. One one occasion, I got an apology message that they were busy, and my call was still answered well within five minutes.
1. Also, of course, the "You may be able to find answers to your questions by going to www.wespoutbullshit.co.uk" message every 17.3 seconds. Listen, pal, I am only sat here listening to your lies because I have already tried and failed to find what I need on your shitty website.
A couple of decades ago, as a much younger man, I worked on the Council Tax Recovery team. Reminders, summonses, bailiffs - so you can imagine the calls we had.
There is not enough money in the world that would get me to work on a public sector call centre again.
Why does the system ask you to verify your identity which you do. Sometimes in rediculous ways - At Santander my Voice is my password..
And then, you finally get through to an actual human and they ask you to do it all again!
I can’t speak for banks with voice verification software, I didn’t work in a bank. The company I worked for only confirmed identity verbally at the start of a call.
But we had to get 3 pieces of info to confirm identity because otherwise, someone else could make changes to the account.
Employees who didn’t have authority to agree to terms, exes who were seeking information, brokers who were trying to agree new contracts they couldn’t get the client to commit to, relatives who were trying to make decisions they felt they had authority of over their loved ones - it was actually amazing how often people were not the account holder, and would have caused problems for the client had we not had that policy.
Failure to follow the data protection process was instant dismissal, and rightly so.
I am working for a call center for a UK based company and most of our calls are from the UK and Ireland. It is called DPA, customer gives us their information so the company is liable to protect it. I cannot give your info to anyone that calls up and gives an order number or I get feedback from the quaity team.
When they make a typo or anything on the securty check before call it is DPA fail and we have to confirm the information once again.
Company is covering their ass since it can cause them to lose a lot of money if a case goes to trial.
> Then they’d demand to speak to a manager, of which we had one for 30 staff, who would then say the same thing I did, delaying the queue.
That's a problem right there. I know that you only get the next person if you ask for a manager. But sometimes you need second level support to fix your problem, and the handover never seems to happen, even if it is obviously necessary, because, as you said, first level support has limited authority.
PS: Nice victim blaming. Very British.
I didn’t say the first level has limited authority…not sure where you got that in my post?
In fact it was the opposite. We were permitted to resolve about 90% of issues ourselves: managers were only needs for exceptional issues.
The problem was, everyone thought their issue was exceptional, and clogged up their time, and that if they shouted enough the outcome would change.
The times something did genuinely need escalating, I referred it myself, as I knew exactly what stuff would require sign off from Up Above.
I have no idea what you mean by victim blaming, either. I was explaining all the ways the call got prolonged, without adding value for anyone. You don’t even know what company I worked for so, perhaps dial back your projection.
I had a faulty gas meter changed this week, I first reported it in October last year (and have since found out that the quality standards set by Ofgem say that they are supposed to have taken significant steps, not just an acknowledgement, within 5 working days! I escalated, and eventually got an acknowledgement, then radio silence again for several weeks. I then read on the energy company's website that if they had not responded by the end of the next working day, I could speak with the Customer Escalations Team.
But they only provide one contact number for any customer service, and that person insisted that they were not able to put me through. I did eventually speak with the Customer Escalation team - by phoning Citizens Advice. They have direct contact numbers, but are not allowed to give them out - they Can transfer a customer through. I asked the Escalations person how I could contact them again if they also failed to reply to me in a timely manner, and was told I had to ring the ordinary number and they would put me through - despite them refusing to do so half an hour earlier. They also insisted that there were no direct line numbers to give me - despite Citizens Advice clearly having direct line numbers...
If customers get angry, at least some of the time it is because they have been lied to and lied to and lied to again, and repeatedly given reasons not to trust what they are being told.
I have absolutely no doubt that my meter has only been changed now because I made it clear that I knew full well that it was getting very close to the day I could involve the Ombudsman about their failure to get anywhere near *close* to meeting the service standards.
Of course, while my meter was faulty, they have been estimating my gas use. Given that, since October, they have been overestimating my *electricity* use by 300%, I have no doubt that I still have big arguments with them about more relaistic estimates of gas use, so I will probably still be involving the ombudsman.
Oh, and although I now have an email address for Customer Escalations provided by them, they don't even acknowledge anything sent to it...
> I have no idea what you mean by victim blaming, either.
Yeah, I noticed that. People were pissed off after waiting in a poorly designed phone queue, but you were blaming the victims. Instead of the system. Do you have any idea how aggravating some phone systems are?
How on earth is refusing to have your account details ready, not wanting to confirm your identity that keeps your account safe, or refusing to accept that shouting won’t change the terms and conditions you agreed to a ‘fault of the system’?
I’m going to leave you to steam now. Best of luck next time you call a contact centre - maybe try being a bit less angry and hyperbolic with the staff, and they can get your query resolved.
This. Used to work for one. And people would get so arsey when i asked them to confirm security. To the point i got fed up of it and told them if i didn't ask these and someone accessed your account. You won't be happy. You can't have it either way "i wasn't far off leaving at this point)
And managers are never needed. People just think they are. 90% of the time the agent you speak too knows more than the manager.
My doctor's in Birmingham used to be " phone up at 8:30 and join the queue" now we have to download an app, and use that for every enquiry, even repeat prescriptions then your enquiry gets " triaged" and you might get a call back at some point .
It worked perfectly well phoning in, but the service is run for the convenience of the doctors not the patients.
I'm just intrigued, how do you think this new system is 'for the benefit of doctors'? Surely it's more work to triage each person than simply operating first come, first served? Seems like extra work designed to better help people to me
I use the NHS app for prescriptions, the problem is that my anti depressants are a special case medication and I have to go in to put in for those. It's horribly inconvenient and just a little silly, if I were to double my dose via overdosing (not planning to) I'd be asleep all day and in a worse mood because I'd have gotten nothing done.
Over the last 10 years I've worked in call centres. The Pay is shite, training is pretty much none existent, toilet breaks, time off the call and note taking are usually timed and targeted for your monthly *stats* Managers are usually just as clueless as everyone else or an absolute jobsworth.
We had to try 60 times last week just to get in the queue for the drs phone line, then we were number 30 and unsurprisingly no appointments left. This was after calling dead on 8am
Today it took 50 minutes on hold to get through to DWP. It’s getting ridiculous
I worked in a call center for a bank, specifically I worked in the financial assistance dept dealing with vulnerable customers. We were almost always swamped with queuing calls. We also had non stop recruitment going because it was understood we needed more people, however its hard to retain staff in an extremely stressful job like that. Nobody wants to get screamed at down the phone by people having their worst day, constantly. 80% of absences were related to mental health and most people leaving cite it as the number one reason to go. You want more people working in call centers? Then people have to treat them better. I could list a dozen huge reasons call centers can't retain staff but this comment would be massive so I only stated the treatment by customers since it is one of my top 3 reasons to quit.
Call queues suck but ultimately they're busy from people calling and a huge number could do stuff online or via using Google for 30 seconds like people who ring up to check balances or pay a bill. If you cut all those people and only allowed calls for direct issues that can't be done remotely you'd get calls down a lot
One of my favourite examples of this was a customer who, when I explained it can be doe in two minutes online, told me "I know. But that's what I pay you for."
Complained about out the wait time though (10 mins)
I feel like this is a symptom of a massive cognitive decline in population since covid. People don't seem to be able to think for themselves anymore.
Boomers being absolutely inept doesn't help
There are likely to be multiple queues going through to the same staff who are multi-skilled e.g. business customers prioritised over residential. There may only be 5 people left in your queue but your entire queue might be behind 5 other, higher priority queues. Source: used to be a manager in a call centre
I’ve worked in a call centre, nobody wants to work for minimum wage to be shouted at for things beyond their control. And I can’t blame them!
Despite being easy in the terms of the actual job, it’s one of the most stressful jobs I’ve ever worked, and I’ve worked in an emergency veterinary hospital.
Plus we were always understaffed, low staff equals higher profit margins so they always ran us on as bare bones as possible.
Please don’t blame the call handler, having a go at them just makes their day worse and does nothing to change the problem. Nor does making a complaint about it, management don’t care.
No matter which way you slice it it’s unacceptable. High number of calls - not enough staff to deal with the required work load. Thirty minutes per caller - terrible at resolving customer’s issues.
I called my dentist and they said you are number 6 then it quickly went down to 2 but then it stayed on 2 for at least 20 mins. As they blasted their music down the phone line there was a constant pre recorded message saying I could hang up and when they had time they’d call me back which I highly doubt.
Lol reminds me when I made a call to a call centre and was in a queue for 6 minutes before my call was answered by someone at the other end.
So caught off-guard by this, I jumped when the guy answered the call and I exclaimed to him I wasn't expecting to be served so soon! 😆📞
Think that was HMRC? Something to do with my NI info anyway.
There is an interesting statistical anomaly related to this.
If you average over time, most of the time the phone service is not busy. So they achieve something is 95% availability with a short delay.
But if you look at it from the perspective of a customer, most customer call at busy times. That is just in the nature of "busy". So most customers will have a poor experience.
So what matters more? That the service runs smoothly when there are no customers calling, or that it fails when there are a lot of customers calling? I know what I would pick.
my doctors tell people to call at 8am if you want to book an appointment , ( not that they ever have any ), ALWAYS engaged so when you eventually get through about 10am you are told you have to call at 8am , when you tell them you have been trying since 8am they tell you they have been very busy ,AAAAARRRGGG , , OF COURSE YOUVE BEEN FKN BUSY COS YOU TELL EVERYONE TO CALL AT THE SAME TIME , fkn retards .
My doctors state that they receive on average a 1000 calls a day which is something like a call every 30 seconds, the fact that I'm on hold with them for up to an hour is utter horse.
You mssed out the "unusually" lie, as claimed in the worn out recording they play every single time you call.
It is, of course, not the fault of the poor droid who actually eventually answers your call, but when I had some other cause to make a complaint, I asked if they thought that being lied to like that *improved* the mood of their customers during the wait. I suggested that winding up your customers as they queue was hardly likely to be beneficial for the call centre staff they *do* have.
See also "Hi, I'm calling from [bank/ whatever]," (Quite possible as I am expecting a call from them) "I just need to ask some security questions to confirm who I'm talking to." Err, no, *you* are calling *me* claiming to be from [bank], *you* are the one who needs to prove who *you* are. Some understand this, but some get highly offended that I would disbelieve them, while they refuse to believe that I am the person they thought they were calling!
I hate calling anywhere but it's a must if you want to get good value for your money unfortunately. Best deal Virgin gave me on their online configuration tool was £42, on the phone I managed to get it down to £27 for the next 18 months with 18 month contract I can end.
When I eventually get through, I always ask if they are having a busy day. 8 times out of 10, it is a normal day. 1 time it is busy, and the 1 that really pisses me off is when they tell you it has been dead all day. Keep me waiting for 25 minutes telling me you busy when your call centre staff are bored and have nothing to do? I hope they make it illegal.
Wankers.
Most companies have a live chat that can provide you with answers or connect you to an agent for quicker answer
There's probably a lot of morons ahead of you in queue wanting to ask basic questions they can easily find out for themselves, but boomers 'lIkE tO tAlK tO sOmEoNe'
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Every. Single. Call. Since COVID no less. Weird. Even the doctors. Still. I call lazy bullshit, understaffing and too many middle management . Far far far too many. 1 manager for every 10 people because you can't trust the people you employ to do the job you pay them for. If only there was another way.
Virgin media are still using the line "due to these unprecedented times" I think by now they are pretty precedented. Hire more calls centre staff you cheap fucks.
Higher better staff too as the current ones are utter shit.
I moved to a different ISP in the end, I get gigabit now for a fraction of the price.
I've just had an email to tell me they're putting up prices by nearly twice the rate of inflation. No apology, just essentially an email saying "hey, we'd like more of your money, so we're going to be taking it". This has prompted me to get off my ass and switch providers, which in all honesty I should have done ages ago.
Hmm, I've been considering a switch /to/ Virgin Media since BT don't provide FTTP in my area yet. Are they /that/ bad? Who are you considering?
They're not *that* bad if everything works. Customer service is pretty terrible, so if anything breaks it's a nightmare getting it sorted. But it rarely goes wrong, so it's all good. My only problem with them is price. Now I'm out of the "discount period", I'm essentially being charged £75 a month for shit TV, decent speed internet, and a landline I don't want, with no option to get it any cheaper now I'm no longer a "new customer". To be honest, if I ring up to cancel and they offer to half the price, I'd stay with them to save the hassle of switching. So don't let me put you off moving to them. As for who I'd move to, I haven't even thought about it yet, I'm lucky enough to be spoilt for choice around here, so it's not really an issue.
I appreciate the info, thanks.
Fwiw that's my experience of them too. Decent speeds, no data caps, awful customer service but in the 10 years I was with them I only ever needed their customer service once (twice if you count calling to cancel) when our neighbours had their garden redone and the company doing it cut through the cable to both houses. But the price increased year on year way above inflation and all of their promotions are new customers only. As I said I went from 500mbit at 60 quid a month to gigabit for 30 quid a month from an FTTP provider (Vodafone) and that includes a static IP, too.
Thing is, call centres pay utter shit, and treat the staff like shit as well. If you’re actually good at your job, you don’t hang around.
Blame it on the piss poor inductions and low incentives in terms of pay.
I think the issue is high turnover, when I worked for a pension provider they said that out of four new hires in the call centre only one would stick around.
Again that comes down to investment through, spend a little more money and they might become nicer places to work and people might stay. A happier workforce becomes more productive and you end up with more experienced staff who can solve customer problems, actually solve them! And better customer outcomes means more customers and better retention. Making your support a race to the bottom makes it worse for everyone except the manager whose bonus is dependent on cost cutting.
> If only there was another way. Communism? Putting people before profits? Yeah, communism.
Read a book.
Das Kapital?
Oh that’s great!
Wouldn't it be easier to collect names of companies *not* doing this?
Annoyingly the student loan company didn’t fall into their list, was on the phone with them for ages
Ironic given Martin Lewis is telling people to phone up mobile phone companies to get better deal, often the prices are set and agents only have some wiggle room with prices. But you get Marjorie calling up wanting the new iPhone for the same price as her iPhone 5 and then argues because martin lewis told her she could get a deal.
I think you're targeting the wrong people with your criticism here. Martin Lewis has provided so much value and advice - particularly over recent times. Weekly he highlights free services, tricks to avoid paying full price, deadlines which should not be ignored, savings advice, how to save money on utilities etc Good luck to Marjorie but I hope she sees sense and gets an Android
So the problem is the customers not the business for requiring people to jump through hoops to pay the "real" prices?
Marjorie misunderstood and haggled on the device plan then, not the data plan. They absolutely have leeway to lower prices. I got my phone with three, I knew I was going to go with them because the overall price I'd pay in total was the cheapest with them but it didn't mean I wasn't going to try and go further. They offer me a data plan of £20 and I said sorry it's too much, so they offered me £18. I said no it's too much and miraculously after a couple of minutes it was £16. I knocked 4 quid off a month in a few minutes. They would rather knock a bit off than risk losing the entire sale. If you happen to call a company and they don't negotiate prices, well tough shit that's not Martin's fault, he's giving general advice not specific and he's only telling you to try. If you're already on the cheapest plan you're on the cheapest plan. A bit rude to try and disprove all the good he's done with some hypothetical that didn't even happen.
Except it did happen. My wife worked in ee sales for 5 years and got these calls daily. The price plans are prebuilt they do have some wiggle room but not much, and often, they couldn't match other competitors this meant she often got abused as they claimed she just didn't want to do it. Then you have the people who don't understand that sky is cheaper because its over 3 years yet ee is 2 years. I'm glad she isn't in that job anymore as it destroyed her mental health having to deal with these type of calls every day.
None of that is Martins fault, he shouldn't give any advice because some people are shitty? If people don't understand one plan is 3 years and one is 2 it's because they're stupid, not because of Martin. Downvote me all you want but it still isn't Martin's fault lol. I worked at eon, I got all the "Martin Lewis said this" hurled with abuse as well, but I don't blame the man for their intolerance to keep a lid on their emotions. It's pathetic you're blaming a man who gives class advise to many people because ur wife was shouted at. As you said yourself, people can call and agents can 'wiggle' prices, so you're not even saying his information his wrong, just blaming him for others people's actions.
"Your call is important to us." - the biggest lie in customer service.
You've reached The Abyss. We are experiencing a high volume of angst at the moment. Your howl is important to us, so please hold.
Sometimes, when you call the abyss, the abyss calls back.
Sounds better than "Please hold, or hang up. We don't actually give toss" though.
"Your call is inconvenient to us. Please hang up so we don't have to deal with your issue. If you choose to stay on the line, we will make your wait as long and frustrating as possible to punish your insolence."
"Your call is important to us...please hild until it is no longer that important to *you*."
It's not uNpReCeDeNtEd if it's every day!
It is not unprecedented. It is just high. High compared to the amount of money they want to spend on support. Which is very low.
You don't have this problem when you try to phone Birmingham city council, as they hide their phone numbers so it's extremely difficult to find them, and voila, they can say that they don't have long queues .
If you try to call my council, they just have a recorded message saying they don't take phone calls any more...
Not really relevant but I have already small business and we shut down our phone liens during COVID. We were researching how to distribute customer service calls to staff at home and realised hardly anyone called us any more, less than one a day. It's funny when we get the bi-yearly epic complaint from a customer about "how dare we not have a phone number" when they're literally the only person who would've called over the last few months. But on the other hand the benefits of not having a phone number are greater.
After repeatedly being forwarded to a bot that was unable to address my issue, I eventually called the switchboard of my local council directly and asked them point blank how to speak to a human. They sheepishly admitted that if you just do nothing at the prompts eventually you'll get transferred.
I've left the company now, so I can absolutely tell you about their BS. I used to work as an outsourced call centre for them on their emergency OOH line for social services. Sometimes their day staff would tell people to call specifically after their lines shut knowing there was absolutely FUCK all we could do. They had a convoluted 4 page document of questions we had to fill in every call so would take half an hour but only paid us for 10 minutes. The absolutely worst bit was though I had Police call me reporting child abuse and you had to call their dedicated in house team. I was on hold for 45 minutes, woman came on the phone munching food apologising saying she'd just finished her lunch break. But she was one of 2 people on that night... it was hell. And they specifically hid internal numbers so that everyone would call us.
I worked in a call centre years ago. Lots of calls would start with a rant about how long they’d been on hold, delaying the queue. I had to confirm the caller’s ID with 3 questions. It should have taken about 45 seconds, but people would moan about doing it, delaying the queue. Half the time they wouldn’t have any references ready, so I had to find their details the long way, delaying the queue. Then I’d give them an answer they didn’t like (‘no, I’m afraid I can’t waive any charges, as your account has already had the last three taken off’), then they’d rant about what a useless bitch I was, delaying the queue. Then they’d demand to speak to a manager, of which we had one for 30 staff, who would then say the same thing I did, delaying the queue. Ah. I am forever grateful I will never be in that line of work again.
> I am forever grateful I will never be in that line of work again, further delaying the queue.
😂 I’m fairly sure that being spoken to like shit every day is the main reason call centre work has such an incredibly high turnover.
It broke my wife. They changed her commission told her wouldn't notice the difference. She made 5 new connections and 4 broadband one month made 400 in bonus. The next month after bonus change she made 7 new connections and 3 broadband and got 210 in bonus. There was also the prices they couldn't change but people had unrealistic expectations and wanted new phone worth about 1000 quid for 10 pm. Got all sort of abuse, constantly under pressure to hit unrealistic targets, managers on huge ego trips for 1.5k more a year.
I never understand people who are shitty to call centre staff. It's not their fault if the managers understaff the place, and being a dick to the person you do speak makes it less likely they'll put effort into helping you. It's one of those nice situations where being a decent person is not only the right thing to do, but also the best for everyone involved.
I am going to suggest that if employers employed enough staff to *prevent* people having to wait in long queues, and compounding it by lying to those customers that todays long wait is unusual rather than the norm, then there would be a *lot* fewer angry customers when their call does actually get answered. But, of course, doing that might mean that at quieter times, shock horror, some staff *have no calls to answer*!!! and to a certain managerial mindset, such idleness (/s) is anathema. I fairly recently switched banks, from one that used the "unusually high volume" lie every time I had to call them^1, to one that is advertising quite heavily at present, and my experience is that the advertising is surprisingly accurate. Whenever I have called, my cally has been answered quickly. One one occasion, I got an apology message that they were busy, and my call was still answered well within five minutes. 1. Also, of course, the "You may be able to find answers to your questions by going to www.wespoutbullshit.co.uk" message every 17.3 seconds. Listen, pal, I am only sat here listening to your lies because I have already tried and failed to find what I need on your shitty website.
A couple of decades ago, as a much younger man, I worked on the Council Tax Recovery team. Reminders, summonses, bailiffs - so you can imagine the calls we had. There is not enough money in the world that would get me to work on a public sector call centre again.
Why does the system ask you to verify your identity which you do. Sometimes in rediculous ways - At Santander my Voice is my password.. And then, you finally get through to an actual human and they ask you to do it all again!
I can’t speak for banks with voice verification software, I didn’t work in a bank. The company I worked for only confirmed identity verbally at the start of a call. But we had to get 3 pieces of info to confirm identity because otherwise, someone else could make changes to the account. Employees who didn’t have authority to agree to terms, exes who were seeking information, brokers who were trying to agree new contracts they couldn’t get the client to commit to, relatives who were trying to make decisions they felt they had authority of over their loved ones - it was actually amazing how often people were not the account holder, and would have caused problems for the client had we not had that policy. Failure to follow the data protection process was instant dismissal, and rightly so.
I am working for a call center for a UK based company and most of our calls are from the UK and Ireland. It is called DPA, customer gives us their information so the company is liable to protect it. I cannot give your info to anyone that calls up and gives an order number or I get feedback from the quaity team. When they make a typo or anything on the securty check before call it is DPA fail and we have to confirm the information once again. Company is covering their ass since it can cause them to lose a lot of money if a case goes to trial.
> Then they’d demand to speak to a manager, of which we had one for 30 staff, who would then say the same thing I did, delaying the queue. That's a problem right there. I know that you only get the next person if you ask for a manager. But sometimes you need second level support to fix your problem, and the handover never seems to happen, even if it is obviously necessary, because, as you said, first level support has limited authority. PS: Nice victim blaming. Very British.
I didn’t say the first level has limited authority…not sure where you got that in my post? In fact it was the opposite. We were permitted to resolve about 90% of issues ourselves: managers were only needs for exceptional issues. The problem was, everyone thought their issue was exceptional, and clogged up their time, and that if they shouted enough the outcome would change. The times something did genuinely need escalating, I referred it myself, as I knew exactly what stuff would require sign off from Up Above. I have no idea what you mean by victim blaming, either. I was explaining all the ways the call got prolonged, without adding value for anyone. You don’t even know what company I worked for so, perhaps dial back your projection.
I had a faulty gas meter changed this week, I first reported it in October last year (and have since found out that the quality standards set by Ofgem say that they are supposed to have taken significant steps, not just an acknowledgement, within 5 working days! I escalated, and eventually got an acknowledgement, then radio silence again for several weeks. I then read on the energy company's website that if they had not responded by the end of the next working day, I could speak with the Customer Escalations Team. But they only provide one contact number for any customer service, and that person insisted that they were not able to put me through. I did eventually speak with the Customer Escalation team - by phoning Citizens Advice. They have direct contact numbers, but are not allowed to give them out - they Can transfer a customer through. I asked the Escalations person how I could contact them again if they also failed to reply to me in a timely manner, and was told I had to ring the ordinary number and they would put me through - despite them refusing to do so half an hour earlier. They also insisted that there were no direct line numbers to give me - despite Citizens Advice clearly having direct line numbers... If customers get angry, at least some of the time it is because they have been lied to and lied to and lied to again, and repeatedly given reasons not to trust what they are being told. I have absolutely no doubt that my meter has only been changed now because I made it clear that I knew full well that it was getting very close to the day I could involve the Ombudsman about their failure to get anywhere near *close* to meeting the service standards. Of course, while my meter was faulty, they have been estimating my gas use. Given that, since October, they have been overestimating my *electricity* use by 300%, I have no doubt that I still have big arguments with them about more relaistic estimates of gas use, so I will probably still be involving the ombudsman. Oh, and although I now have an email address for Customer Escalations provided by them, they don't even acknowledge anything sent to it...
> I have no idea what you mean by victim blaming, either. Yeah, I noticed that. People were pissed off after waiting in a poorly designed phone queue, but you were blaming the victims. Instead of the system. Do you have any idea how aggravating some phone systems are?
How on earth is refusing to have your account details ready, not wanting to confirm your identity that keeps your account safe, or refusing to accept that shouting won’t change the terms and conditions you agreed to a ‘fault of the system’? I’m going to leave you to steam now. Best of luck next time you call a contact centre - maybe try being a bit less angry and hyperbolic with the staff, and they can get your query resolved.
This. Used to work for one. And people would get so arsey when i asked them to confirm security. To the point i got fed up of it and told them if i didn't ask these and someone accessed your account. You won't be happy. You can't have it either way "i wasn't far off leaving at this point) And managers are never needed. People just think they are. 90% of the time the agent you speak too knows more than the manager.
Got number 37 in the queue at 08:03 the other day trying to get a doctor's appointment.
My doctor's in Birmingham used to be " phone up at 8:30 and join the queue" now we have to download an app, and use that for every enquiry, even repeat prescriptions then your enquiry gets " triaged" and you might get a call back at some point . It worked perfectly well phoning in, but the service is run for the convenience of the doctors not the patients.
I'm just intrigued, how do you think this new system is 'for the benefit of doctors'? Surely it's more work to triage each person than simply operating first come, first served? Seems like extra work designed to better help people to me
I use the NHS app for prescriptions, the problem is that my anti depressants are a special case medication and I have to go in to put in for those. It's horribly inconvenient and just a little silly, if I were to double my dose via overdosing (not planning to) I'd be asleep all day and in a worse mood because I'd have gotten nothing done.
Lucky you, we have all of the above, but in addition, when you use any of it to request an appointment it's *always* "oh we're fully booked now".
Over the last 10 years I've worked in call centres. The Pay is shite, training is pretty much none existent, toilet breaks, time off the call and note taking are usually timed and targeted for your monthly *stats* Managers are usually just as clueless as everyone else or an absolute jobsworth.
We had to try 60 times last week just to get in the queue for the drs phone line, then we were number 30 and unsurprisingly no appointments left. This was after calling dead on 8am Today it took 50 minutes on hold to get through to DWP. It’s getting ridiculous
I worked in a call center for a bank, specifically I worked in the financial assistance dept dealing with vulnerable customers. We were almost always swamped with queuing calls. We also had non stop recruitment going because it was understood we needed more people, however its hard to retain staff in an extremely stressful job like that. Nobody wants to get screamed at down the phone by people having their worst day, constantly. 80% of absences were related to mental health and most people leaving cite it as the number one reason to go. You want more people working in call centers? Then people have to treat them better. I could list a dozen huge reasons call centers can't retain staff but this comment would be massive so I only stated the treatment by customers since it is one of my top 3 reasons to quit.
55 mins I waited last night and at 6 o’clock the company closed (cms) so the call ended.
Try (inches) next time. Far more traditional customer service.
Call queues suck but ultimately they're busy from people calling and a huge number could do stuff online or via using Google for 30 seconds like people who ring up to check balances or pay a bill. If you cut all those people and only allowed calls for direct issues that can't be done remotely you'd get calls down a lot
They try that to be fair, doesn't stop the boomers refusing to learn basic technology
One of my favourite examples of this was a customer who, when I explained it can be doe in two minutes online, told me "I know. But that's what I pay you for." Complained about out the wait time though (10 mins)
I feel like this is a symptom of a massive cognitive decline in population since covid. People don't seem to be able to think for themselves anymore. Boomers being absolutely inept doesn't help
There are likely to be multiple queues going through to the same staff who are multi-skilled e.g. business customers prioritised over residential. There may only be 5 people left in your queue but your entire queue might be behind 5 other, higher priority queues. Source: used to be a manager in a call centre
I’ve worked in a call centre, nobody wants to work for minimum wage to be shouted at for things beyond their control. And I can’t blame them! Despite being easy in the terms of the actual job, it’s one of the most stressful jobs I’ve ever worked, and I’ve worked in an emergency veterinary hospital. Plus we were always understaffed, low staff equals higher profit margins so they always ran us on as bare bones as possible. Please don’t blame the call handler, having a go at them just makes their day worse and does nothing to change the problem. Nor does making a complaint about it, management don’t care.
No matter which way you slice it it’s unacceptable. High number of calls - not enough staff to deal with the required work load. Thirty minutes per caller - terrible at resolving customer’s issues.
I called my dentist and they said you are number 6 then it quickly went down to 2 but then it stayed on 2 for at least 20 mins. As they blasted their music down the phone line there was a constant pre recorded message saying I could hang up and when they had time they’d call me back which I highly doubt.
And then when they get through the caller spends about 5 minutes complaining about the wait time 🙄
Lol reminds me when I made a call to a call centre and was in a queue for 6 minutes before my call was answered by someone at the other end. So caught off-guard by this, I jumped when the guy answered the call and I exclaimed to him I wasn't expecting to be served so soon! 😆📞 Think that was HMRC? Something to do with my NI info anyway.
Your call is important to us. 🤔
There is an interesting statistical anomaly related to this. If you average over time, most of the time the phone service is not busy. So they achieve something is 95% availability with a short delay. But if you look at it from the perspective of a customer, most customer call at busy times. That is just in the nature of "busy". So most customers will have a poor experience. So what matters more? That the service runs smoothly when there are no customers calling, or that it fails when there are a lot of customers calling? I know what I would pick.
I was first in the queue for 20 minutes yesterday. Think I must have called on their tea break.
Sorry. I didn't understand that. You are now number 8 in the queue. Thank you for your custom.
my doctors tell people to call at 8am if you want to book an appointment , ( not that they ever have any ), ALWAYS engaged so when you eventually get through about 10am you are told you have to call at 8am , when you tell them you have been trying since 8am they tell you they have been very busy ,AAAAARRRGGG , , OF COURSE YOUVE BEEN FKN BUSY COS YOU TELL EVERYONE TO CALL AT THE SAME TIME , fkn retards .
Everywhere is short staffed. I don’t understand how it’s worse than it was pre-Covid
It's the "we are experiencing higher than normal call volumes" every time you phone.
They are also usually claiming it is "Unusual" or "Unexpected" which is even worse BS.
The other day I was number 1......for 30 minutes.
Opus 1, Tim Carleton.
My doctors state that they receive on average a 1000 calls a day which is something like a call every 30 seconds, the fact that I'm on hold with them for up to an hour is utter horse.
Or you are #7 in the queue to speak to operator 28 of 30.
One lady who looks like the wife from Monster House eating jammy dodgers.
5 seconds after the lines open. We are experiencing a higher volume of calls than normal
You mssed out the "unusually" lie, as claimed in the worn out recording they play every single time you call. It is, of course, not the fault of the poor droid who actually eventually answers your call, but when I had some other cause to make a complaint, I asked if they thought that being lied to like that *improved* the mood of their customers during the wait. I suggested that winding up your customers as they queue was hardly likely to be beneficial for the call centre staff they *do* have. See also "Hi, I'm calling from [bank/ whatever]," (Quite possible as I am expecting a call from them) "I just need to ask some security questions to confirm who I'm talking to." Err, no, *you* are calling *me* claiming to be from [bank], *you* are the one who needs to prove who *you* are. Some understand this, but some get highly offended that I would disbelieve them, while they refuse to believe that I am the person they thought they were calling!
I hate calling anywhere but it's a must if you want to get good value for your money unfortunately. Best deal Virgin gave me on their online configuration tool was £42, on the phone I managed to get it down to £27 for the next 18 months with 18 month contract I can end.
Why put more staff on when they can just get an automated voice to lie to you?
When I eventually get through, I always ask if they are having a busy day. 8 times out of 10, it is a normal day. 1 time it is busy, and the 1 that really pisses me off is when they tell you it has been dead all day. Keep me waiting for 25 minutes telling me you busy when your call centre staff are bored and have nothing to do? I hope they make it illegal. Wankers.
Is the glass half empty or half full? It is twice the size it needs to be, that is for sure.
And then you have to give information to a bot, so you that, then the wonk who eventually answers asks for the same information again...
Most companies have a live chat that can provide you with answers or connect you to an agent for quicker answer There's probably a lot of morons ahead of you in queue wanting to ask basic questions they can easily find out for themselves, but boomers 'lIkE tO tAlK tO sOmEoNe'
I once got "There are 0 people ahead of you in the queue" I was like "Well how am I in a bloody queue then?!"