To need to leave work on time??

[elliebo]

I work in a call centre for a major high street bank.
I work the late shift, finishing at 10pm. Currently on waiting list to change to working the earlier shift, but could be months.
Call centre located in very rough area. Husband comes to collect me as I don't drive (epilepsy) and the night time public transport is a nightmare.
Trouble is, I can often be still stuck on a call from a customer at 10.10 or 10.15pm. All calls are recorded, so have to read from tedious script and not "skip" any bits of it.... 9 times out of 10, the customer will be complaining about charges, interest calculations etc and will have already had an answer from me and a full explanation. They just want to stay on phone moaning..
Meanwhile, my husband is waiting outside in a really dodgy area at 10.15pm wondering where the hell I am and why I'm not out of work.
I've raised this with my manager multiple times, I blagged a bit and said I need to get out on time because of "caring responsibilities" at home but manager just said bad luck if a customer calls at 9.59pm just as I'm all ready to shoot out of the door! Any other call centre workers share my frustrations?
All I'm asking is to get out of work on time, not for anything else.
Of course, could understand if I was working for the emergency services or other sort of "expect the unexpected" kind of life and death type job... but a call centre?
Any tips for getting out on time?

When I worked in a call centre we knew that the member of staff who had been waiting the longest was the next one to take a call so we used to hit our ready button fast so it made us not ready then ready and reset our times. Those of us working there longest knew to do this.

It is completely shit and I had the transport issue but with a bus and then the next one was 1 hour later so it was agreed with my manager I could finish my shift at 5.45 but I did come in early to make up my time every day.

Your Dh will just have to wait for you. I am sure he understands that calls run over and when you have finished you could easily send a quick text saying you are on your way out. Agree with others though, have him collect you 10 minutes later and just delay leaving the building if you are off on time.

Pick up and then "accidentally" disconnect. I know it sounds shit but they'll call back and likely get someone else. Call centres take advantage of employers like crazy and you need to take care of yourself.

Employees, sorry.

Call avoidance - everything is monitored so you can't do this unless you want to lose your job

You will lose your job for some of the tactics suggested here

Call centres - the places where happiness goes to die. I worked in one for a couple of months and saw bullying managers and unhappy staff.

I think, as previous posters have said, you should keep a log of all the time you work over your paid-for hours (and encourage all your colleagues to do the same) and contact the appropriate Union for advice.

Until staff start demanding fairer approaches to things like this, call centres will continue to treat their staff like shit.

This kind of comment is only surely said by people who have never worked in call centres.

They are cut throat as fuck, and will replace anyone who fucks about like that the next day.

As a job sometimes late calls come with the territory; that's where the 'customer service' part kicks in really. You wouldn't physically walk out on a customer who had an issue, this is no different.

I used to work in a call centre in the water industry (on the emergency/fault reporting line rather than customer accounts). So not only did the person on late shift often get the last call then we had to manually divert the calls so that after 8pm they were answered in the control room; then test the line by ringing the published number from a non call centre phone and wait for the control room to answer it (this could take ages as there were only two people in there overnight and they were often busy speaking to engineers). Sometimes calls got "caught" between the two locations. Even after we got a new system that automatically diverted the calls we were still told to test it because the manager didn't quite trust it to work. I was often there until after 9pm.
My ploy was if I was in a call around 7.45pm I would keep the caller chatting and then make the post call admin take as long as possible.

Yes, you are right in this instance as the call queue finishes when OP finishes - i was thinking of the wrong type of shift there.
I used to think people who wanted paying for going 5 minutes over were petty but not any more - its never a small family business trying to start up who try not to pay you, its massive corporations who can absolutely spare the extra couple of quid and they know people need the work so they dont bother getting a solution in so profit from your free labour - anyone whose worked call centres knows those 5 minutes here and there very quickly add up!

This is sadly the nature of working in a call centre and I agree it is so frustrating. I am surprised it seems to happen every shift and that you are always kept on that long, but maybe ask your Husband to come for 10:10pm instead, if you can stay safely in the building