The Five Ring Slam-down Campaign!

MSE_Martin · 31 May 2005 at 1:36PM

What's it about?

Voicemail may seem like a benevolent gift on behalf of telecom companies, ably allowing us to leave messages for our friends willy-nilly. Yet in truth it's a massive driver of profits. The Reason? It means we are always 'connected' to the person we're calling, even when they're not there. Thus rather than no cash the provider now gets the roughly 5p minimum call revenue. If every UK adult hits one voicemail a day, that adds up to half a billion pounds!*

What should we do instead?

Of course if you want to leave a message do so. If not, the average voicemail answers after six rings, so just hang up after five.

If you don't think the person will have time to answer. You can always immediately redial, that way they'll still be able to get to the phone, we just won't be giving away our cash!

* Note: This is based on 30 million, yet ignores the fact that some mobile companies also charge the person receiving the voicemail, even if the callers just rung off.

lipidicman · 31 May 2005 at 1:39PM

Im not the only one who hates answer phones then. I hate leaving messages and I feel so ripped off. I have always felt secretly ashamed about this, but here I am amongst friends!

April2 · 31 May 2005 at 2:13PM

Of course, no MSE-er worries about such things at the weekend - when calling any 01 or 02 number costs them nothing if they've followed Martin's advice and are on a TalkTalk or OneTel (or whoever else) 'free calls every weekend' package .

DonnyDave · 31 May 2005 at 2:57PM

Totally agree Martin. I don't have voicemail switched on at all.

FYI Orange Answerphone kicks in after 30 seconds of the beginning of the ringing starting. Keep your eye on the second hand and hang up at about 25s.

Fatboy_NSS · 31 May 2005 at 6:13PM

How many people can reasonably be expected to answer their phone within 5 rings? I would just about be able to make it down the stairs in that time, and then the handset is usually under a cushion or somewhere ridiculous like that (never on the charger!) Surely it's far more polite to leave a message when the voicemail kicks in, after all you're already paying 5p for it. Hanging up after a few rings just makes you look cheap, like you don't want to pay for the call so you're expecting the other party to do 1471 and call you back.

Incidentally on my orange phone there isn't a minimum charge, if I hang up as soon as I get an answer phone then I'm just charged for 1 sec worth of the call.

DonnyDave · 31 May 2005 at 7:29PM

Fatboy_NSS wrote:

How many people can reasonably be expected to answer their phone within 5 rings?

So turn off the answering service and then it will ring for longer.

Incidentally on my orange phone there isn't a minimum charge, if I hang up as soon as I get an answer phone then I'm just charged for 1 sec worth of the call.

But the people who call you may have to pay this. You may also have to pay to retrieve your voicemail and the caller may ring you because you haven't or checked your voicemail.

dag_2 · 31 May 2005 at 8:21PM

How many people can reasonably be expected to answer their phone within 5 rings? I would just about be able to make it down the stairs in that time, and then the handset is usually under a cushion or somewhere ridiculous like that (never on the charger!)

If you're calling someone who you think can't realistically answer within 5 rings - then hang up after 5 rings anyway, and press the redial button. You can keep the phone ringing for free for as long as you like, as long as you remember to hang up and redial after every fifth ring.

Of course - some voicemail services answer immediately, without the phone ringing at all. This is particularly true of BT 1571 on a busy line. Although some lines might generally answer faster than others, you ultimately have no control over how long a line will take to answer, or whether or not it will answer at all.

The sad fact is: if you're not prepared to pay at least the connection charge for the call, then you shouldn't be dialing the number in the first place. If you do manage to make the phone ring for free, then you should consider it a bonus.

That said - you can make that connection charge cheaper by dialing 18866 or 1899.

andy88_2 · 31 May 2005 at 10:43PM

MSE_Martin wrote:

The Reason? It means we are always 'connected' to the person we're calling, even when they're not there. Thus rather than no cash the provider now gets the 5p minimum call revenue.

But that's the real target - the 5p minimum charge

why do we have to be antisocial about not leaving messages for friends and family to avoid this charge? It's time it was either done away with totally or reduced.

Take a look at the phone bill. Ok I use 18866, but not all the family do. What proportion of calls are at this minimum charge? About 30 or 40% on ours I should think.

It doesn't cost that much to connect the call anymore. Other phone companies have much lower or zero minima. Orange does not charge for calls under 3 seconds, just enough to hang up, but even a 4 second call when charged for is from only 1/3 p.

"Oh, but if we cut that we'd have to put other charges up."

My heart bleeds. Several years ago it was said that even if all calls in Western Europe were charged at local rates, BT would still be wildly in profit. Other call providers do supply calls at such prices but BT is still amongst the highest chargers for int'l calls of national carriers. Ok times are harder in telecoms, but they still managed to lobby for monthly rentals to go up by about £3 a month last year (increase of £1, and abolish the free calls allowance).

So let's alter the campaign. Abolish the 5p minimum. Totally. Pro rata for every second 0.05p.

If they can't be dragged that far, how about 2p minimum but the first 10 seconds is free.

Even better, everyone gets a free 1571 answerphone. Calls to leave a message are free. Why not? It'll probably cause another chargeable phone call. If BT wants to win back customers they need to get aggressive.

But I'll still use 18866 for my internet connection. :rotfl:

DonnyDave · 1 June 2005 at 12:02AM

Of course on BT Together (Option 1), evening and weekend geographical calls cost 5.5p and not 5p.

Paul_Varjak · 1 June 2005 at 1:37AM

Martin, do you have an answer machine? If so, do you switch on the toll-saver mode so that you can save money when accessing your calls remotely, but ensuring others pay for their call because your answer machine answers within two rings?

If you make a call to an answer machine you may as well leave a message anyway. Chances are you won't exceeed the minimum 5p for the call and you will get to speak to the person you are calling sooner and at their expense!

BTW, it's even more expensive for us in Hull as the minimum price for a call from Kingston Communications is 5.5p+VAT. BT is 5p including VAT.

Heinz · 1 June 2005 at 8:18AM

andy88 wrote:

What proportion of calls are at this minimum charge? About 30 or 40% on ours I should think.

I think you might've stumbled across the reason BT offers 1571 as a 'free' service!

The Five Ring Slam-down Campaign!

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