They call you and put you on hold.

Reggie_Rebel

r2015 wrote: »

After 1 minute of hold music I hung up.

You held for 50 seconds longer than I would

daytona0

shaun_from_Africa wrote: »

Why is it rude?
The company concerned phoned up the OP following their initial insurance quotation so they would have had all of the details required to enable them to give another quotation.
If they were able to offer a lower renewal price then why didn't they do this when the first contact was made?


As far as I'm concerned, what they did was no different to knocking on someone's door then when the householder answered, telling them to wait a few minutes while they ignored them and checked figures on their phone.

Hanging up on someone with no explanation is rude, at least in my opinion anyway. Each to their own... if you want to listen patiently without expressing disinterest, and then hanging up at the drop of a hat without telling anyone then sure go for it! I can only imagine how much of the companies time was wasted on OP, either in work before the call or during the call (before they clocked that the line was disconnected).

With regards to the hold process, it is either done because OP was rude or because the company needed to check some key information. Yes, they have the initial information but anyone who has bought insurance over the phone knows full well that they verify the details verbally, and they may need to check for legitimacy/accuracy before offering the quoted price (for example). There are too many legitimate reasons for the hold process being used for it to be considered unreasonable.

Yes, your scenario is mostly correct. Two points though;

1. Initial contact made by customer, so it is a warm call. The initial contact was human-less as the customer filled in an online form and so it might need to be checked over by a human.

2. It is not reasonable to expect an agent, telephony or in person, to have the original quotation memorised. This means that technology will be used, comprising of things like; computers, laptops, ipads, mobile phones. You can guess what a telephony agent will use, but what about an in-person visit?

So yes, I don't see a problem with an in-person agent going away to check the details. I can't honestly see why you'd be so annoyed in such a situation to be honest! Maybe I'm just a bit more chilled out than you

shaun_from_Africa

daytona0 wrote: »

Hanging up on someone with no explanation is rude, at least in my opinion anyway. Each to their own

But how do expect someone to explain why they are hanging up if they are on hold?

duchy

Another vote for childish, rude and lacking in manners.
I presume you either don't work or are in a role with zero customer contact to not understand how ridiculous you were.

daytona0

shaun_from_Africa wrote: »

But how do expect someone to explain why they are hanging up if they are on hold?

Hang on a second, I've just written a long post and you ignored it all, focusing in on only 1 sentence to argue the toss about something which is subjective?

I think it was rude, so do other people. You think that it isn't rude. There is nothing more to add on the matter.

marlot

These things should work both ways.

It's very rare for a call centre to ask if they've caught you at a convenient time. There is therefore an (implied) assumption that their time is more valuable than yours.

I'm still with the OP. If their online quote was £200 higher than the alternatives, the balance of probabilities is that the call is a waste of my time.

Yes, I know they may offer to price match the lower quote I have, but in my experience that simply means that they'll try to sting me come renewal time.

daytona0

1. Those adjectives can be used legitimately in a largely subjective case. There may be a general consensus, or there may not be. If you do not appreciate the reasoning behind the use of these adjectives (you are certainly allowed to disagree though!) then you are ignorant. You are "ignoring" the reasons why a particular user may call someone these names. I concede that they (maybe even me) may be ignorant too, but I think that you do not hold any moral high ground over any other poster on here, particularly when you factor in point 2..

2. You have flat out ignored the OP in your very first post on this thread. Your input is therefore pretty diluted, because it serves to address a subsidiary poster. It is probably the only post which is worth reporting on here. You should take a leaf out of shaun from africa's book... he disagrees strongly with me, but he provides some reasoning and I respect him for that (unless 1 line is isolated from a large post, which is silly). Maybe you should do the same.

missile

marlot wrote: »

I'm with the OP. He or she already put a fair amount of time into answering the insurance questions online.

If the company wanted to be competitive they had their chance.

+1

Call centre people are rarely able to answer any issue which is not on their script. Pay peanuts get monkeys

meer53

I've played the hold game twice recently. I'm quite happy to hold, i can multi task and usually get on with doing something else whilst i'm holding. I've managed to get my car insurance £120 cheaper and my car breakdown cover reduced by 50% just by holding.

Can't see what the problem is really, these days, it's not as if you're tied to the telephone is it ? My house phone and my mobile both have loudspeaker facilities, i just put the phone down until they come back !

ThumbRemote

daytona0 wrote: »

2. You have flat out ignored the OP in your very first post on this thread. Your input is therefore pretty diluted, because it serves to address a subsidiary poster. It is probably the only post which is worth reporting on here. You should take a leaf out of shaun from africa's book... he disagrees strongly with me, but he provides some reasoning and I respect him for that (unless 1 line is isolated from a large post, which is silly). Maybe you should do the same.

Actually it's you ignoring the OP.

daytona0 wrote: »

With regards to the hold process, it is either done because OP was rude or because the company needed to check some key information. Yes, they have the initial information but anyone who has bought insurance over the phone knows full well that they verify the details verbally, and they may need to check for legitimacy/accuracy before offering the quoted price (for example). There are too many legitimate reasons for the hold process being used for it to be considered unreasonable.

Everything you suggest about checking information, verifying details etc could have been done before calling. OP hasn't said the caller asked for any more information, they just said the caller phoned up and then put them on hold.