call centre waiting times

carrie483

Doesn't it work if you press 0#0# over and over again? Some places i thought it puts you straight to the front of the queue?

Astaroth

Lady_E wrote:

Various posters are right about the call waiting times. But isnt it funny that one bank (First Direct) can answer you call really quickly , deal with your call efficiently and have a personality , and yet another bank(Abbey National)just manages to wind me as I try very hard to get my query across. I think it reflects on the management , 1st Direct tell me that they do not have a specific time set for a customer, and do not read from a script. Guess which one I enjoy dealing with more?????

But then you are dealing with 2 companies with a totally different target market.

First Direct is aimed at the Mass Exclusive market which are those that are cash rich and time poor and Abby are now possitioning themselves for those who are considered a credit risk.

Their different customers have different priorities and so the products and services are setup to meet their respective expectations.

enor

I'm sitting in a call centre right now and we have around 20 people answering phones and have only taken 500 calls since 8 this morning. Every customer has come straight through and there are no wait times. We are now sitting here on the internet and chating with absolutly nothing to do until 8 this evening. A couple of weeks ago on a monday we had taken 2000 calls and really were struggling to cope with calls taking around 3 minutes to answer.

So much depends on timing though, one minute we can have all staff on the phones with 10 calls still queing half an hour later we will all be here twiddling our thumbs.

I don't know how about other calls centres but for us the best time to call is between 5 and 6 pm, we are always dead at this time of day probably because most people are on their way home from work. Lunch times are the worst time of day as we're short on staff and and everyone rings in their lunch hour.

samtman

In both Call centres I used to work for (1 catologue, 1 Insurance) 5-6pm is one of the busiest times as everyone finishes work and tries to call if they can't at work I think the first hour is the quietest the about 3 when all parents pick there kids up then 7-8pm when the soaps are on

enor

I'm sure it really depends on the call centre, we're a mail order company but as soon as it hits six in the evening the mojority of the staff go home to watch the soaps! Theres only 3 or 4 people left then to man the phones.

That does shock me that you find 5-6 a busy time though, if we take our calls from yesterday which was a total of 1022 calls throughout the day between 5 and 6 we only took 30 or so. Split that between 20 staff and an average call time of 2 minutes it shows how quiet we were.

EasilyAggravated

ring british gas. its a laugh a minute. well it is if you have a sense of humour. they tell you your call will be answered in 7 minutes and it takes them 60!!!! im on a one man mission to make british gas see heir faults it takes the pi$$

scheming_gypsy

I work in IT and do all the telecoms work in a call centre in the same industry as the OP's post so i know a fair bit about how the systems work.
Our place use 0800, 0845 and some 0870 numbers (from businesses bought out and the numbers still under contract).
At our place there is no money making scheme on 0845 / 0870 numbers and the only preference on calls being answered is when it's part of the contract with the client that the service level is faster than others. Our standard service level is 80/20 - 80% of calls answered in under 20 seconds.
Sometimes calls take longer to answer, this is usually due to call volumes. Budgeting is a load of !!!!!!, you can't over staff the call centres as you have people sitting round doing nothing and getting paid for it. You have to try and forecast how many calls you expect to receive on any day compared to previous compareable days. This all changes due to time of day, time of year etc.
If there's been an incident, burst pipe in a certain area then you'll get a higher number of calls, many of these are just answered and the caller informed that it's a burst pipe / leak / whatever and there's nothing that can be done.
Where i work there are different teams allocated to different areas.
New Claims, existing claims, contractors, complaints etc etc. When a new claim comes in they have to take all the details from the caller, raise a job, ensure they're covered for the claim under their policy and take any other details. Once this call is finished they'll hang up, type up any other notes onto the job and then it'll go through the system and they go back onto being free to take another call.
Not all the staff can take calls on all the services we provide, so out of the 400 (depending on forecasting requirements) staff, x% are taking new claims, x% are dealing with call backs, chasing parts, chasing contractors to see where they are, x% are on the loo, x% are on a break (2 x 20 minute breaks per 8 hour shift), x% on lunch, x% speaking to a manager or collegue regarding a job they're dealing with, x% on 1-2-1's / appraisals / bollockings / etc.
27 minutes is a long time to be on hold from experience where i work but if the queues are that long then there's usually a pretty good explanation for it and it's not due to bad management / budget but high unexpected call volumes.

Lady_S

Lady_E wrote:

1st Direct tell me that they do not have a specific time set for a customer, and do not read from a script. Guess which one I enjoy dealing with more?????

I don't know about all products, I know with some FSA registered companies they can choose to be registered in two ways.

One is that you read scripts, and one is that you don't. The easiest way to reach the FSA standard is to have scripts, and thats why the companies resort to them.

Astaroth

Never heard about any FSA rules on scripted or not.... Certainly with insurers the FSA give them the choice of being advisory or non-advisory. The rules for non-advisory are much easier to follow and lend themselves to a call script where as advisory you must keep much more detailed records (ie what the justification of the advice is and what info you made the advice on) and as the calls are more freeform they dont work well with scripts.

keira_3

I'm ashamed to say that i worked for British Gas in one of their call centres and the reason that customers are waiting so long to be answered is that Advisors are under extreme pressure to sell on every call. This can be Gas, Electric, Homecare packages or Talk Talk telephone service. Failure to sell means going down the disciplinary route. I got out because I feel that the Customer Service side is more important. The staff are under so much pressure that sickness levels for stress are unbelievable. Due to staff shortages there are not enough Advisors to answer calls.