Telephone waiting times

Ryune

Don't Ebico and M&S use SSE's customer service?

scaredofdebt

undaunted wrote: »

(Npower for instance constantly claim to be aiming for better, even the best service)

Number 1 for customer service by 2015 is their goal, I find it hard to believe they will achieve that even given the rubbish they are generally up against.

Pincher

What if the 0845 calls ARE the profits?

There is no incentive for the call centre to answer quickly.
The computer SHOULD keep you holding to generate income.

The computer screen has a big button, which says "MUTE", which puts the customer on mute, and brings up the operator's preferred waste of time, like Facebook, or Tetris. After a ten minute break, the computer brings the screen back, and the time wasting continues.

No action should be taken to actually resolve the issues, so the customer will call back, generating more income.

Hire some jobs for benefit victims, so the company gets some subsidy or tax breaks. When a customer goes to the Ombudsman, apologise and "retrain" them. If the Ombudsman doesn't buy it, fire them, then hire some more canon fodders.

What if this is now standard business practice?
Is it chapter 9 in some kind of MBA course text book?

Chapter 9: Managing customer expectations.

Certainly feels like lots of retail businesses are run this way.

They don't even bother to change the automated greeting any more: "Your call is important to us....."