Thank you for holding. We know you are waiting. A member of staff will be with you as soon as possible.

[vncenvano]

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAArrse
Is what I say to you Direct Line Car Insurance

And no I don't effing want recovery breakdown service as well, I'll shop around for it.

It's the same with everybody you ring. I just chunter away at the recording and hope someone is listening (fat chance). And they wonder why people are so angry when they DO finally get through.

It's not the staffs fault that there aren't enough people working there though. I doubt they want to be busy!

It's not the staffs fault that there aren't enough people working there though.

but it is. not the staff that answer the phone, but the managers in charge of resourcing and staff rosters.

poor guys answering the phone don't have much control over how many people are working, but you can bet there are millions of hours of incoming call recordings / stats where they could probably predict to within a tiny percentage how many calls they're going to get on a typical Saturday at 3pm.

they probably have a formula to under staff for it, actually! I.e. we expect X amount of calls today, and we need, say, an average of 50 staff to answer all calls within our guideline of 5 mins on hold... so we'll do 30 staff into the rota and save Y amount in staff costs

i bet that's how it works!

Direct Line Car Insurance. Aaaaaaaaaargh!!!

Wait til you have to make a claim!
My car was written off by another driver crashing into me (no fault on my part)

They didn't contact my witness because the didn't have his address. I gave them 2 addresses he could be contacted at (work addresses).

They had no idea my car was going to be scrapped 3 days later.I had phoned the garage and they told me.I had to go and collect all my belongings the next day.

I felt that I had to do alot of the phoning around because they were not keeping me up to date.

And some of the staff in claims were extremely unhelpful.

Like all insurance companies, fine when taking your money, paying out is another story...

That's what I mean though. The staff who answer the phone. They are probably on shit money and hate the place as much as the customers but will still be the ones to get the shoutiness.

I sell the technology that does that, doublechoc... It works really well and "learns" for individual contact centres, etc but usually managers don't believe it works and interfere with it. Having said that, Direct Line don't have it (as far as I know) anyway.

The problem is usually that resource is cut to an absolute minimum and many centres are understaffed - particularly at the moment.

I was trying to renew my buildings and contents insurance the other day and, in order to identify me even after I'd given the policy number, I was asked for my birth date and other personal details. I refused and said something like, 'Get lost'.

I rang again 5 minutes later and got someone else at the same place who was politeness itself and didn't ask such personal questions. I renewed my policy in less than 5 minutes.

All our representatives are helping other customers . . .

Kill. Kill. Kill.

Me. Marks and silencer

and do they have a high-rate phone no, where the longer they make you hold on, the more profit they make?

Thank God for the EU
"Traders will not be allowed to make a profit from the charge levied on customers for using a credit card; those with telephone hotlines will only be allowed to charge customers basic call rates."

you might not hear about this if you only read the Daily Mail

..."Did you know you can access our services on www.bastardcorp.com?."

If I wanted to go online I would bollocking well go online!!!!

Virgin media have the worst worst worst recorded messages. they have this girl who sounds a bit breathless, and faux hip, like someone from Brighton.

If you must call, here is how not to pay premium rate..

www.saynoto0870.com

Just kidding people from Brighton

and dont forget "your call is important to us"

if its so fecking important, employ more staff to answer it then [hangry]

YANBU to be annoyed

YABU to post on AIBU without even attempting to ask an "Am I Being Unreasonable?" question.