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

[Mariandidit]

Tesco pet Insurance are pretty quick but their GDPR spiel really annoys me. Just put me through!

It is code for “we are cheapskates and won’t put enough people on the phones, what are you going to do about it?”

Made worse when they won’t even pay the extra to tell you what place you are in the queue. Although perhaps that is deliberate, in case you found out that you were number 341.

You get a full house when they regularly cut in with a message saying, “did you know that you can look up the answers to frequently asked questions on line?”.

That is code for “feck off! Just FECK OFF will ya? Stop clogging up the phones, you fecking Luddite!”

First Direct. They can answer the phone without ever holding you in a queue. It's like a miracle!

I had this last week, every other min they told me my call was important and they would answer asap. Cue shite music and then a section on using the website which is now even easier and safer to use ( fuck off the phone line basically). When I got through it was about changing my pension details, she commented my details were 8 yrs out of date. I joked that I had been on hold since my house move!

35 fucking minutes just get more effing staff, fuck wits. Ahhh feel better now

I’ve never been on hold longer than 5 minutes with HSBC and always get really good customer service from them.

I hate making phone calls so being on hold for ages is awful as have more time to get more and more nervous!

I.wonder if one of the frequently asked questions is,is my call really really important to you or are you keeping me in a queue in the hope I will give up and hang up

I hate those ones where you listen to the 695 different options but none of them seem to apply to my problem...so which do I press?

I actually would mind less if they only had some music because whenever they interrupt for the ‘tour call is important’ malarkey it only makes you think they are picking up. Which they never are.

Even worse are the ones with an automated system that you have to speak to for them to direct your call HMRC and British Gas are the worst as they can't understand my Scottish accent and repeat back something completely different to what I've said. I usually just agree and then let whoever answers transfer me to the correct department.

I got straight through to Dwr Cymru earlier. No wait at all.

Oh yes, the ‘ sorry, I didn’t hear that, did you mean cuntybolloks?’

National Rail Enquiries is actually very good. Rarely a queue, and they know exactly what information they need to ask to answer your question. They do always ask whether you have the over 60s railcard when you say you have a railcard though, so I'm slightly paranoid how my voice sounds over the phone! Whether the conductor on the train agrees with what they've told you is different question...

For Barclays, it's easier to use the telephone banking line and make a small transfer or something, then when they say "is there anything else I can do to help today?" you can say "well actually...".

Yes they are annoying pivot I find myself getting irrationally angry with them.😠

I called Next at 3.30am yesterday and was told they were experiencing a high volume of calls?

Yeah they were. Lying to you ourkid😬

Don't worry the company managing my WiFi service has jokes read out to you whilst you wait for your call to be taken. They're cheesy ones as well. I listened to them for 20 minutes the other day 🙄

On top of that the IT company my previous company used, used to go on about Star Wars -
Press 1 for the busy Jedi's fighting who are busy fighting for the technical dept.

Press 2 for the Rebel's in accounts

Press 3 for the Princess Leia's on reception!!

And so it went on and holding music was, yes you guessed it Star Wars theme song!!!

Yes, EMP (online clothes store) customer services. I’ve had to call them 3 times and they’ve answered before the second ring each time!

I used to work in the call centre of a water company dealing with emergencies. It was always quiet when EastEnders or Coronation Street was on.

I used to work for a small provincial building society. They set up a direct mortgage line; there were 3 of us with normal telephones and no headsets.
Unfortunately they took out an advert in several national newspapers the weekend before we launched. To say we were swapped was an understatement.
Calls were being taken by anyone and everyone in all departments before the switchboard crashed at Monday lunchtime.
They did however recruit like crazy and there were at least 20 staff by the time I'd had enough and left 18 months later.

I went into underwriting which was far quieter.

I listen to the calls "for training and monitoring purposes". Btw, even when you are on hold it records you in the background. I usually hear people slagging off the company/shouting at the kids or dog/blowing their nose/farting etc. It's a joy! :o

I used to work in an 'emergency' call centre many moons ago. We had strict SLA's in terms of call answer times and were also measured on how long each call took, how many times you went to the loo etc.

The budget for call centre staff is so low and actually the better you are, the more likely everyone will be rated against you, thus changing SLA's and pissing other agents off.

We used to have a weekly chart on the wall showing all agents and their call times etc. Unbelievably some people would get really giddy about being in the top 10. There wasn't a bonus or anything, so where's the incentive?

I’ve found Avro (energy company) quick to answer, but that was a while ago and I think they’ve grown a bit. They’ll never be as bad as Npower was.

I feel the big companies (all services) are just cheeky - minute or two if you want to pay or upgrade, ages to get something put right.

I can’t remember the company but I once got offered a choice of type of holding music (1 for classical, 2 jazz). In fact they answered pretty fast so didn’t hear much.

The Bank of Scotland have always given excellent service on the phone. No wait and they know their stuff!

First Utility give you the option to wait or have a call back (and they do!) or wait and while you're waiting, choose what style of music you listen to. Don't think I've been on hold for longer than 10 minutes.

Now fecking KCOM, bunch of.........

50 minutes waiting, then speaking to someone who said I had to ring a different number, rang that, waited, spoke to someone who told me they couldn't block a stolen phone number, nothing they could do till Monday. So I asked if I could perhaps ring EE direct and she said 'oh I suppose you could do that'. 3 minutes and all sorted with EE (excellent call answering by the lovely Linda)