Has there ever been a call centre ever which isn’t experiencing high call volumes

[Mariandidit]

15 mins and counting listening to der der der der derderderder

Years ago I worked in a call centre and at busy times we had a screen which constantly showed the calls waiting.

It was daunting to be trying to work with a customer and have '658 calls waiting' constantly flashing over your head.

The relief at watching it go down and down until it hit zero was immense!

First Direct. I think that's it.

Finally got through, they put me through to the department, phone rang out and then cut off

Restarting Monday from now

I don't think there has, but our calls are all important.

And they also.be recorded for training purposes Conferance.

I suppose I could always visit the website where there are lots of useful FAQs

Or press 9 to listen to their GDPR policy

Nobody, ever, has pressed 9

Skipton Building Society. My calls are therefore very important to them.

NHS supplys are the worst and they have a tinkly little song which has an adverse reaction on me.

Good old Skipton. They never let you down

They are usually run on the premise of not ever having staff sat waiting for a call to come in - I worked on directory enquiries (showing my age!) and it was the same then.

If there ever was, the management would think it was overstaffed and immediately cut employee numbers so we could all get back to a minimum 15 minut wait, and they could get their next Jag 6 months earlier.

Press 9 and listen to the GDPR policy. Some poor person had to sit there and record it. You owe it to them to listen to the whole thing.

NHS IT help.

Quiet muzak

YOUR CALL IS IN A QUEUE, WE KNOW YOU ARE WAITING, SORRY YOURE NOW DEAF

Quiet muzak

HMRC are surely the worst with their hour long waits and then they immediately cut you off and you have to ring again

HMRC is a speaker job.

Call them, put speaker phone on, go read war and peace, come back and wait for them to answer

Ring the welsh language line they speak English too and you get through immediately

Pro life tip right there from @NotSuchASmugMarriedNow1, is that really true?

See I don't mind being told in in a queue especially when they tell me what place I am it's when they interrupt Green sleeves every two seconds to tell me that all their advisors are currently busy answering calls but my call will be answered as soon as possible, I had kind of figured it out for myself ..

DH had to read out some of the "sorry you're waiting so long" messages, as the powers that be decided it sounded friendlier with an Irish accent! I don't know what number I'd need to call though to find his accent...

I cant remember who I was calling but I once held on for at least 20 minutes while getting on with paperwork and by the time a human being answered Id totally forgotten who and why I was ringing because I was so immersed in my paperwork!

It annoys me when you get the message saying 'we are doing all we can to deal with your call as quickly as possible'... recruit some extra staff then!

They're like the 3 week wait to see a GP. It's all planned around what they think is a reasonable time to wait to talk to an advisor. If research shows people will wait 10-15 minutes, then their staffing etc is geared to achieve that - no benefit to them to put on more staff to answer more quickly. Exactly how GP surgeries work - when waiting times exceed 3 weeks, they put on extra clinics, when they start to fall, they remove clinics - all the while aiming to stick to the "optimum" (in their eyes) 3 weeks. (Same with hospital consultants/out patients too!).

HMRC is a speaker job.Call them, put speaker phone on, go read war and peace, come back and wait for them to answer

And even then, you usually get some muppet who has less of a clue than you do!