Call centres !!

[Rod Neep]

You know... you phone for something important...

For billing please press 1
For sales please press 2
For general enquiries, please press 3
....
ad infinitum.

so you press 1

If you have a query on your bill please press 1
If you want to make a payment, please press 2
....

so you press 1

"Sorry, all our operators are enganged on other calls at the moment. Please hold. The operator knows you are waiting, and will answer your call shortly"

.... music...

more music....

"your call is very important to us, please hold... "

more music

"your call is very important to us, please hold.... "

more music.

"Oh stuff it, if my call was that important to you then you'd answer the damned PHONE!"

Click!

[Mythology]

Yes, I make it a rule before signing up to anything (ISP, bank, utility supplier, whatever) to imagine that I'm already a customer with a problem and dial their Customer "Services" number to see how they perform.

Ironically, some of the worst ones for running a *telephone* based help centre are those whose services include providing you with a telephone service!
Bulldog, NTL, OneTel and Powergen, to name but a few, all have pretty poor reputations in this respect - amazing how they seem to find plenty of people to staff the sales line, isn't it? ;)

[Ed McKie]

I can cap all of that:

"If you want to cancel your account for security reasons you must phone"

so you phone and after three press 1--press 1---press 2

You get a message which says " Due to the large number of calls we are getting to our accounts department (people wanting to close their accounts perhaps, I wonder) we cannot take your call at this time. We are doing this to save you the inconvenience of hanging on for long periods"

and of course they dont answer emails either

Needless to say this is a ISP

Cheers..Ed

[jeannie]

...Needless to say this is a ISP
Cheers..EdI think you should name and shame, Ed, (especially as I'm thinking of changing ISP!)
Kind Regards

[Chasing Caseys]

Also, Halifax Card Payment number (for people like me who never pay on time !)- you go through all the rigmarol of pressing the numbers and when you finally do get through they tell you "This department is now closed, our opening hours are"................!!!!!!!!!! But before all this happens they ask you to key in your 16 digit card number and if they do answer the first thing they ask you for is your 16 digit card number so why key it in the first place!
Ikea are impressive as when they tell you "you are held in a qeue ? " they actually tell you where you are in the line so you have a choice of holding on or not

[Londonwhay]

BT are one of the worst for doing this - even when you phone their sales department! :mad: |shakehead

[Peter Goodey]

British Gas Service are a good one. They consistently explain the delay in answering by referring to an "exceptionally high demand" on their services.

Think about it. There can't always be an exceptionally high demand.

If demand is exceptionally high it must normally be much lower. But it isn't.

What they mean, of course, is that their call centre is consistently understaffed.

The British Gas spokesman said: "We have no plans at all to offshore any of our call centre work, we remain entirely committed to existing UK call centres." - BBC 15 July 2005.

Yeah well. They don't need to do they? They already run them on a shoestring.

[Copper]

I have just had a stressful 48 hours trying to get some answers from the garage. The car went in for a service, MOT and some replacement parts yesterday morning. All I want to know is when will I get my car back. I have been getting more annoyed by the hour and this afternoon I experienced this

I phone yet again - their response "I will put you through" I get put on hold, musac then a boring tape telling me about their quality servicing. I then get cut off! I phone again and tell them they cut me off - their response "No I didn't madam" "I will put you through" I get a repeat performance plus the "your call is very important to us" closely followed by "we know that you are waiting" followed by them cutting me off!!! I phone again and tell them they have cut me off twice - they get the vibe that I am one cross woman - they take my name and number so somebody can call back. Words fail me.

[Mythology]

"they take my name and number so somebody can call back"

:D :D

That's a favourite, that is - don't hold your breath!

I have two bank accounts, my main one with the Co-op, who I like but who don't have a local branch, and one with Lloyds, which I opened for the convenience of paying in locally when I moved here 25 years ago.

On the only two occasions that the Co-op have got something wrong, one phone call has sorted it, and they've apologised for their error, no arguments.

When Lloyds got things wrong, which was on an almost annual basis, it invariably meant an argument. When they did away with the idea of you phoning your own branch and set up their call centre, it got worse. When, about four years ago, they messed up as usual, I phoned up, went round in circles, eventually got it "sort of" corrected, but could not get it into the girl's thick head that, as it was their error that was responsible for the unauthorised overdraft charge, it was not merely a case of adjusting the account to reflect the fact that they'd put the same debit in twice, that charge needed refunding too.

She at last realised that what I was saying made sense, but that she didn't have the authority to do that - she would have to pass it on to her superior, and someone would "phone me back".

I'm still waiting for that phone call.

I withdrew everything bar 1p then, when they eventually corrected it on a statement about three months later, withdrew the refund, leaving just the 1p in the account. I've left the account open, as occasionally I need to pay things in quickly and can't get to the Co-op - if the legs are dodgy, it's easy enough to get a neighbour to pay it in at the local Lloyds - but as soon as it clears I use the internet to transfer it to the Co-op, so Lloyd's certainly aren't making a profit out of my account!

[Jane Gee]

My colleague may be a woman but by god get on the wrong side of her and she can get the better of anyone.
She recently had a right game with a local car dealership where she had brought a second hand car from high spec etc.
She took it back to the garage within a few weeks for different things to be put right as part of the warranty etc one of the tyres on the car needed changing and the garage decided to put the spare on and then proceeded to tell my friend that this tyres was defective her retort was so you have supplied me with a defective tyre (which was true) they were humming and ahhing about replacing the tyres so she decided enough was enough and demanded to see the manager who promptly told the servce staff to change the tyres pronto and stop messing about!
After several more weeks of other things needing to be repaired she asked for an appointment for to see the Manager. I bet when she rings up they stand by their beds. Sometimes you just have to stand your ground and stamp you feet to get anywhere.
She is not difficult she has had to fight all her life due to a serious health condition and is the best person to turn to if you need support, she has also volunteered for CAB.|jumphappy

[Jane Gee]

Sorry about this second post my friend described to us the day she had to a ring contact centre up on behalf of her mom and she said she could tell the person was reading from a script.
In the end she felt she was getting her point across and in desperation she said to the guy will you please put down you script and talk to me properly. Finally she managed to get things sorted we were howling with laughter as she told us. |jumphappy
She is always polite, never rude and interviews at work like a dream we all admire and respect her |angel|.

[elaine webb]

Well I know what it's like to be at both ends of the phone as I use to work for a well know catalogue company. I was there for 17years!

Yes, you do have to follow scripts - at the end of the day it's your job and if you are listened into at work and you weren't following 'procedure' you could be seriously reprimanded - even given verbal/written warnings!

I know what it's like being a customer too and I agree it IS very frustrating hanging on the phone, pressing this, that and the other. I've done it myself and had to deal with the verbal complaints from people trying to get through to me - and believe me people can be extremely rude when on the phone. Sometimes, I think it would be better having a face to face job as I'm sure people wouldn't be quite so rude to your face! But there again.........:confused:

Anyway, I thought I would tell it from both sides.

Elaine.

[Jane Gee]

Fortunately with our face to face customers if they do anything that is bang out of order ie verbally abusive they get a strongly worded warning letter that tells them their behaviour will not be tolerated.
This applies to telephone calls also.
In a public place many people will "play to the audience"

[Barnzzz]

I used to work in a call centre for somewhere that shall remain nameless. I've now moved on to the department that deals with the most serious complaints. To get the most urgent reaction from a company my advice is, find out who the MD/CEO is and write to them. Copy in any ombudsman or governing bodies, Offwat, Offcom or whatever, or a relevant government department or your MP or local/national newspaper. Now that email is used so much this really isn't a lot of trouble.

In an ideal world you should be able to ring someone up and sort out your problem, but this isn't possible in a lot of cases. If people don't complain (a lot !) nothing changes.

On a more positive note, I have to say that LL***ds Bank were very good recently when I had a complaint.


Sue

[Jane Gee]

I have to say local MP is always a good place to go to. We had an occasion where we had lost patience with and been messed around so much by a european funded scheme administrator that reluctantly we wrote to our local MP.
Letter detailed every thing that had happened and how we had been messed around etc no holes barred.
In 2 weeks the money was sorted as we knew it should have been done 3 months before.

[Barnzzz]

Companies take notice of MPs. If your MP is worth his/her salt, they will ask for details of your complaint. How can the company involved reasonably refuse to provide them ? They then have to explain what they are about and what has gone wrong.

Sue