Tax office

savingdosh2

I DO'NT hate the taxman, but I DO hate the morons who man the phone lines. Pathetic, I agree.

pricey85

savingdosh2 wrote: »

I DO'NT hate the taxman, but I DO hate the morons who man the phone lines. Pathetic, I agree.

My experiences with HMRC's call centre have always been excellent, when I eventually get through of course. Their staff seem very clued up and have always managed to help me out, nice and polite too generally.

The only issue is the wait times, though I now call using a landline number which seems to connect much quicker. I suppose given that their "customer" base is pretty captive they tend to focus on cost saving rather than having an abundance of staff available to field calls. Given that they're funded by the tax payer I have no problem with this policy providing wait times don't become massive in off peak times.

Malory

davemorton wrote: »

I am paying your wages

Best line to tell a worker if you want to guarantee bad customer service

Morglin

davemorton wrote: »

Pathetic bunch of lazy sponges!!!
Try answering your phone while I am paying your wages with my taxes. Over an hour on hold to get to speak to a human, and still waiting. Quick enough to charge me if I take my time. And they say we have a well run country with an infrastructure like this, PATHETIC!!!!!!!!:mad:

*Although once they finally answered, the bloke was nice, polite and helpful. Credit where its due*

They are completely understaffed, and because there are so many 'employees' on zero hour temp. contracts, many are untrained as well.

And, it's due to get worse as they will have to lay off more trained and permanent staff.:mad:

Lin

bluebeary

are you calling from home or your mobile ? i know how you feel, get down to your local tax office and use their phone, they answer straight away, i couldnt believe it !

savingdosh2

bluebeary wrote: »

are you calling from home or your mobile ? i know how you feel, get down to your local tax office and use their phone, they answer straight away, i couldnt believe it !

That's a good idea, but our is 42 miles away!

pinkshoes

An hour on hold?! That's not bad, as it's taken my mum two YEARS to get back the £1000+ they owed her from overpaid tax!!

She found they were just completely and utterly incompetent, disorganised and useless, and unable to do basics such as log details from a call, send out a letter, reply to a letter, or even just note that she'd called.

Reduction of staff is no excuse, and by the sounds of it, they need to start by actually getting organised, and having a protocol to follow, as all the staff in the world probably wouldn't help if they can't even manage the basics!

Morglin

There is also the point that their computer system is fairly hopeless, and breaks down almost daily. They are trying to upgrade the system, but it doesn't seem to be improving much.

I'm not defending the staff, but when they are too few of them, most of them are untrained and the system persistently goes into meltdown, it's probably difficult to get any acceptable standard of efficiency.

Lin

sirmarcus

Morglin wrote: »

There is also the point that their computer system is fairly hopeless, and breaks down almost daily. They are trying to upgrade the system, but it doesn't seem to be improving much.

Hope the govt don't use Accenture like they did a few years with the NHS computer systems; otherwise the HMRC will then go into total meltdown and chaos.

Esoog

Malory wrote: »

Best line to tell a worker if you want to guarantee bad customer service

Not to mention these people also pay taxes just like the rest of us!?