To find this Martin Lewis tweet fucking hilarious (if you've got a service provider you need to contact, jump on his bandwagon)

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Martin Lewis is picking up the question of whether service companies have now just 24/7 adopted a "we are experiencing an unusually high volume of calls" message, whether they are or not. Good on him.

I'm finding his X/Twitter comments absolute comedy gold. Lots of replies tagging companies who they can't get through to and customer service absolutely SCURRYING to help and grovel.

So if there's anyone you're trying to get in touch with who won't return your call, this might be the tweet to tag them in!! 😂

x.com/martinslewis/status/1754499137125442002?s=46&t=XqfZWmueAqpogLDM-t6xcg

Also, sympathy if you're the person who is stuck on social media customer service with no control over whether this lying message is played to everyone who runs your company!

Good for him.

Had this today with car insurance. Directed me to website for online chat. Doesn't work. Had to call. Got the message 🙄

Took an entire day once, to sort something out with Vodafone. It’s like a maze, trying to press the right combination of numbers in order to speak to someone. Most of the time it would end up in getting cut off.

My GP surgery still has a message saying they are currently not seeing people face to face due to the current pandemic.

I work for one of the companies shown on X. I do a combination of live chat and phone calls on different days. Calls have been really quiet for the past 3/4 days however live chat is manic.

Hi, can I ask do you work from a call centre or are you home based?

Last time I had to speak to someone with vodaphone I pressed the “I want to leave” option. It’s amazing how quickly a person will appear in that call!

Well done, Martin Lewis. I have bookmarked that page in readiness!

Report 'sorry for unusually high call volumes' recorded messages

Excellent plan. Some places really are shocking. Virgin Media, I mean you.

Yorkshire Building Society on the other hand were very prompt, as were Beehive. Although YBS need to update their phone hours on all areas of the website. Interesting how much shorter they are these days!

@Luckycloverz I do two days in the office and three at home.

I can recommend Ecotricity for ease of talking to someone. I don’t work them but like their customer service and company ethos.

Watching this thread with interest,as I am thoroughly fed up with getting this message every bastarding time I phone my GP's surgery.

Martin Lewis is a fast talking genius.

HMRC are the worst for this! Sometimes the auto line just basically tells you to get lost and hangs up on you!

Ecotricity were the worst company I've ever had the misfortune to deal with. Yes, you could speak to someone, but without fail, every single person gave a different answer and failed to action what they promised.

We no longer try to negotiate leaving our broadband provider. We just sign up.for another company and they rung up and actively encourage us to stay by matching whatever offer I've found.

Octopus energy have been good by email and phone last year.

Have had lots of messages on calls to other places saying unprecedented demand but just keep on hold.

I had my cataracts removed by a private healthcare company, but as an NHS patient. If you tried to phone them, you had to press one option if you were a private patient and another if you were an NHS one. You can guess what's coming - if you chose the NHS option then the phone just wasn't answered, but if you chose the private option it was answered at once!

Reminds me of this

My downstairs neighbours managed to cancel my broadband, well I guess not them but the addresses got mixed up and my broadband got cancelled instead of theirs, I missed the email because I thought it was marketing and then nothing until it got turned off.
Had to sign back up to a more expensive contract which pissed me right off and then because the engineer that had done the broadband downstairs used the wrong line, I didn't have one so that took ages to sort.

I'd have been happy to receive a call persuading me to stay! Apparently when you sign up with a new provider they tell your old provider....... Which is great if you've actually cancelled! 😂 And yes it took me ages to get through on the phone to get sorted as well!

My work genuinely was incredibly busy this morning and people were in the queue for 30 mins
They could have used the call back option but chose not to, and that actually prioritises them

Then people spend 10 mins complaining about the wait and making the wait longer
We rarely have queues except Monday mornings when everyone rings then complains it's busy (not a time critical service)
Ring on a Saturday or Thursday and there won't be a queue

My ex husband once sued British Gas for wasting his time and won. Maybe we should all start doing this?

If the trends you mention are correct why does your company not roster staff on to deal with these known fluctuations accordingly?

@nowahousewife don't go there! We had a local inspector who changed all the shifts to peak crime time. Officers didn't like having to work every weekend. It worked very well in terms of availability for dealing with incidents.

I remember noticing this years ago, so glad it’s getting some exposure!

@nowahousewife we have every staff member working on a Monday morning
The rush ends after about 90 mins

BarclaysUKHelp are getting an absolute mauling. By far the most complaints about them on that thread than any other bank or telecommunications company.

It makes me glad I don’t bank with them.