Currys Incommunicado?

dirtyrottenscoundrel

My experience ...

a) An operator asks a few questions then routes my call into a queue which is never answered, no matter how long I'm prepared to wait. (many hours)

b) An answering machine does the same thing via an options menu, either way you end up a queue, probably the same queue used by the operator, it will never be answered

This seems true irrespective of the dept you want, sales, orders, tracking & deliveries, cancellations, customer services, complaints, they are all routed down the same
wormhole. Hope rose when I selected the option for "technical advice" a voice recognition pack asked me to say the name of my product, but it had difficulty understanding the word Samsung. Has anyone spoken to a human being @Currys in the last four weeks when inquiring about an order ? 

MoneySeeker1

I suspect a noticeable number of firms are doing that at the moment - ie proving DARN hard/maybe impossible to get hold of by phone.

I decided to pay off the balance of a couple of sofas I had bought a while back on interest-free credit and thought it would be an easy matter of ringing them up, them checking I was correct as to what I owed (I was) and then paying them off by card.

So I rang and I rang and I rang....repeat ad infinitum and I was holding on for ages waiting for someone to pick up and answer me. 

As I'd cancelled the direct debits for these payments after I finally gave up in despair and sent them a cheque by post - they then contacted me and were making out they had no knowledge of having received my cheque (though they would have) and treating me like a "debtor they were harassing for non-payment". Cue for me giving them a mouthful that I wasn't/never have been someone that reneges on debt and I was upset about being treated so inappropriately.

Yet more phonecalls trying and trying to get through to them to have my original phonecall. I was going to either do that or they were going to have to admit to having my cheque (one or the other).

Finally managed to have someone pick up the darn phone at last the umpteenth time of trying (had lost count - could have been 10-15 times?). I deliberately tried at dinnertime (ie around 6pm/7pm) in the end - as I figured they must have had a few staff answering the phones and surely one of those few would be available at a time everyone else was focusing on having their dinner. Got someone at last and made the phonecall I'd been trying to have all along and I cancelled the cheque. Matter sorted.

I've had a couple more phonecalls from them since - where I had to be very firm I was not giving out my security details in a phone call I had not initiated myself (in case they were scammers pretending to be Barclays Partner Finance). Finally managed to get it through to them that giving me compensation for all the hassle and upset they'd put me through did not necessitate me giving out my security details. £100 compensation duly en route to me.

When I said to these people that I suspected a lot of their staff were being Fearfuls and staying off work (ie because they're being furloughed - so not worried about their income) I got the distinct impression I was correct. So I suspect that the day or two after it's in the newspapers the Government are paying less/if any furlough income - then a lot of these staff will suddenly go back to work again..... So, if you can wait till it's clear their income is about to drop - then I expect they'll be back and answering phonecalls as usual.

I expect that is what you are getting too - ie go through the menu every which way you can think of trying to find someone to actually answer you and getting nowhere. That will be the probable reason.

You can bet the way I phrased it to those couple of staff that did ring me was a little "stronger" than that...

sheramber

Well if they were furloughed they had to stay off work.
Furlough is the choice of the employer not the employee so it is not up to them to choose. 

Furlough pay from the government  is 80% of pay so , unless the employer decided to make it up, they are already on reduced pay. 
If the employer is making it up then it won’t make any difference when it drops to 60%. They will still get tha same amount.

mattyprice4004

Use electronic means - most staff will be working from home, and commercial telephone  / PABX systems won't just let them waltz out the building with the phone, plug it in at home and carry on as normal.
Some VOIP based systems can be configured for this - but if theirs isn't one of them, then that's basically zero call answering capability. 

Get in touch via email / twitter / Facebook - I dropped them a Twitter message, and had a reply in 5 hours.