We are currently experiencing a high volume of calls....

Good afternoon, its funny you should mention this as I got this message yesterday afternoon when phoning to renew my RAC membership for the year. My heart sunk but a lovely lady answered in the first couple of minutes and my query was dealt with efficiently and quickly.

The Government dont have anything to so with the customer service queues at GP Surgeries. Its the GP surgeries not wanting to use the telephone service and using e-consult instead. We will probably find out that any Government in power dont really care about what the every day people want they will carry on with electronic everything until there is no one left to complain about it. They also wont do anything about the state of the other things in this country. You get what you pay for and if we dont want to pay then we cant expect to get good service.

My DD had an emergency, and asked if I could draw some money out to lend her for a few days. She can't get to her bank, and is only allowed £250 a day from the cashpoint.
At one time you could just go to the bank and draw out virtually as much as you wanted, over the counter. I know from experience that this is no longer the case, so I tried to phone TSB's local branch to ask about cash availability. They usually answer quickly, but several tries produced an 'unable to answer your call' message, so I decided to go in person.
The branch has been 'renovated.' There is no longer a secure counter with 2 or 3 assistants. Now there is one lady alone at a desk, trying to cope with everyone. When I finally reached her, and mentioned the lack of phone contact, it turned out that she was expected to answer the phone too, but couldn't cope.
Surprisingly, though, she was able to grant my request for £1,000, as long as I didn't mind having it in £50s.
I wonder how long it will be before they announce that , in future, they will only be open for part of the week. They still want our money though!
As for interminable phone queues, I'm still recovering from listening to the CanCan for 40 minutes, the other day while waiting for an answer. When I finally got through it was to an Asian gentleman. I couldn't understand him, and he seemed to have trouble understanding me. Then he asked me to hold, and left me for 10 minutes, wondering if I had been abandoned. My query was eventually sorted out, at much cost to my nerves!

I usually shout down the phone 'well, you should employ more people'. Makes me feel better. When I finally get through I am polite to the person on the other end.

My credit card company gives you an approximate waiting time - great! The only problem is that it's a premium line. The last time I tried it was an estimated 1 hour wait at 17p per minute equating to a charge of more than £10!!

I work for one of these companies. The abuse from customer's is unbearable. Nobody wants to work in a call center. We are always advertising for staff. Rember it's not the agents fault.

In this age of working from home, I strongly suspect that many a recorded message should be one of the following.

I'm sorry I cannot answer your call right now as
" I'm loading the washing machine"
" I'm doing the school run."
" I'm just preparing tonight's evening meal"
" The mobile hairdresser has just arrived"
etc. etc. etc

At AAGA4 exceeding just, just another damned excuse for poor productivity and failure to provide the service we are paying for.

Artaylar

I am right now 10 minutes into what I have been advised will be a 90 minute wait to speak to somebody at Barclays.....sighs....

Last Sunday my son rang Barclays around 2pm as he had seen an unauthorised payment on his account. Out of sheer bloody mindedness he left his phone connected to the queue for non-existent Customer Service until close of business at 6pm - never got through!!

I get “your call is important to us…” at the Medical Centre. Not as important as it is to me, mate.

And then to be advised to call at the end of the week if not vital - but it’s Friday for gods’ sake!

I do not blame the surgery, I put this at the door of government, underfunding, under-staffing, under-mining, they want shot of the NHS and that’s it.

I was browsing a holiday travel site that we used pre Covid. It was for a holiday to the USA, but didn’t say if booking premium economy was an option. I decided to ring and ask, but after a long wait, I gave up.

Couldn’t see why that sort of information was not on the site really. Not the prices, but whether it was an option.

I am in the process is switching banks as my old bank, who I have been with for more years than I can remember, probably forever, no longer take calls from customers! I have always done everything online when ever possible but I just needed a simple question answering, got the usual, recorded excuse regarding the unusual volume of calls they were dealing with, then told to go to their website, etc etc, “unless your call is urgent” I held on and held on listening to the messages and instructions on how to resolve my issue and eventually, after about 20 minutes of holding they cut me off!.,!. That was the last straw, I am not prepared to be treated like that, so me and my money are going elsewhere!

Yes absolutely everyone apart from friends and family !

Insurance companies in Denmark used to be the very worst in this respect, but someone must have told them so.

Now, after informing you that you are currently no. 37 in line, they state press no. such-and-such if you want one of us to phone you back.

And sometimes they do actually phone back!

What annoys me even more is when the message goes on to give a stern lecture to callers about not being abusive to their staff.
When you’ve had to wait more than an hour to speak to someone (as I did when trying to phone Northumbria Healthcare Trust last week) it’s very hard to maintain even a semblance of civility towards the person who finally answers.

Even worse is when they put you on hold for 10 mins and then just cut you off, as happens here in Spain with some services. Again, who's paying for the call?

Yes, I had a query at the beginning of the week about travel arrangements. Due to Covid shortages we have a high volume of calls - please leave a message and we'll get back to you within 3-4 working days. How about sending an e-mail? We'll try to answer within 4-5 working days.

This stressed me out rather. I like to be prepared but I had to just turn up on the day and ask a human being behind the desk - he could only answer part of the question. The bus driver wasn't sure but thankfully a couple of kind passengers knew and were helpful. It's got to some pitch, hasn't it, when the customers know more than the staff?

And what about the cost of these calls unless it’s an 0800? I’ve decided that there is no such thing as music played while on hold which doesn’t end up driving you CRAZY! What have things got to when you’re surprised when you’re answered quickly!

They introduced that recording usually because their customer service team was usually very understaffed and they thought that would explain the long wait!
These days, many people would like to think that they are the only person that is trying to call a service, so believes that the call should be answered on the first ring !
But on the other hand, if they don't feel that their query is not being given enough time, they still aren't happy !

I just tried to make an x-ray appt and got the most complicated ever email address to contact. The Tories are trying to run the NHS down & they are making access difficult

I got it when trying to ring the doctor. When I finally through the receptionist said "they're very busy, there's one GP off sick, their screens are full". I think she expected me to say I wouldn't bother!

Totally agree. And even worse is when a computer answers the phone and you can't speak to a real person. Branches of large supermarket chains and other stores often won't give you the phone numbers of local stores. Saga - 70 minute wait to answer a call if it's a follow-up call for a holiday booked, but are quick enough to answer if you want to book or give them money!

DHL only play River Deep, Mountain High. Suggesting they will deliver everywhere - just not very promptly in the Highlands of Scotland ?

grumppa

I am awaiting the answer which says "As usual, there is a very long queue of callers waiting to be served, but we are offering a choice of music while you wait. For contemporary pop dial 1, for jazz dial 2, for the Great American songbook dial 3, for classical up to 1750 dial 4, for post 1750 classical dial 5," etc.

That would help. Some of the music adds to the stress.

Way back in the early 1990s, I worked for Brtish Gas involved in monitoring call centre responses.

Any district that did not answer customer phone calls within 2 minutes was in big trouble. It affected the managers payrise and pomotion prospects.

That was then. Now you are lucky if you get an answer within 2 hours.