Get off the phones

Barny1979

https://www.express.co.uk/travel/articles/1306146/ryanair-flight-refund-update-july-coronavirus-cancellations-holidays-latest

LilElvis

IvanOpinion said:

dreamypuma said:

I'm not condoning unreasonable behaviour to contact centre staff, or unreasonable demands of them. 

But I am getting increasingly annoyed about some companies using the Covid situation to disuade callers with guilt (recorded messages)  when they have no alternate or inadequate means of managing customers enquiries.

I've found myself having to call providers over the last four months. Had I not, I would have faced increased costs or automatic renewals under unfavourable terms.

I feel that some companies are hiding behind the Covid situation to their advantage. They would be quick to penalise consumers if they didn't act in a timely manner.

With this in mind, I see no reason to not contact a call centre if the needs necessitate. Just keep it brief, polite and to the the point. Sufficient to resolve the issue.

Ultimately the provider is responsible for managing the provision of their service that they have been contracted to provide. Not being able to resolve issues with them (pandemic or not) is for them to manage and resource accordingly.

As far as 'using COVID as an excuse', as you say it is just a feeling you have, and I would be interested in seeing any evidence that supports that and which call centres it related to (they should be named and shamed).  Any I have worked for have been professional.and are doing their best in tough circumstances.

I agree with you about contacting 'if the need necessitates', but a high proportion of the calls appear not to be in the category of 'if the needs necessitate' (coming from an analysis of incoming calls carried out a couple of weeks ago).  It is these calls that are the ones blocking 'necessary' calls from getting through.

As far as resourcing, what would you suggest?  Put untrained people on the phones?  The wait time may go down from 20 minutes to 10 minutes, but how do you think callers will react when the only answer they get is 'I don't know'?  How many operators should be taken off call handling and refund/return duties to train up new callers?  This will naturally generate a bigger backlog.

There is no easy solution, people just need to be more patient and understanding

Lockdown started nearly four months ago and your employer still hasn't done sufficient to increase the number of call handlers. That's pretty poor.

KatrinaWaves

IvanOpinion said:

A quick catchup.  The group from the previous meeting got together again this afternoon, to review progress - you will be glad to hear that it looks like the quality issue has been resolved (again the problem and solution are company confidential - but we will be randomly monitoring multiple calls over the next few days).  We all had a really good laugh at the early replies to this thread (I hope someone isn't going to get all indignant that their posts have been talked about) - thanks for making a boring day funny (I have explicitly asked that none of them create accounts and post in this thread - some of them are much less PC than me). 

However my mate pointed out something that totally bypassed me (I guess you get so used to some things) ... we are not subject to GDPR.  I did say GDPR was irrelevant (just not for the reasons I was thinking).

What a nice Sunday afternoon you must have had. 

Ivan: ‘I spent inordinate amounts of time on the internet trying to get people to stop calling and then trying to explain this whole convoluted story to make it seem more plausible’ 

ALL your colleagues: ‘oh wow that sounds like how I want to spend my time, please can we make accounts to also post about this?!

You couldn’t make it up... oh no actually you could. And have. 

Seriously the lengths you are going to to prove to people who do not care that something happened which clearly didn’t is hilarious. Crack on! 

Pollycat

IvanOpinion said:

Pollycat said:

I think some companies have been slow to update their websites with information on delays to deliveries.

You are preaching to the converted here.  I have had this discussion on more than one occasion. 
However, without going into detail (sorry for those that crave the minutia), I have come across a couple of (pseudo-)valid reasons for limiting amendments.

In that case, companies (or call centre managers) shouldn't complain when customers clog up their call centre trying to find out what's happened to their delivery because the information on the website is wrong.

IvanOpinion

LilElvis said:

Lockdown started nearly four months ago and your employer still hasn't done sufficient to increase the number of call handlers. That's pretty poor.

Two points, comments like 'pretty poor' probably do not come from a deep knowledge and understanding of call centre management and the logistical hurdles we are climbing over at the minute - but it is no more silly of a comment than the first response to this thread.  Secondly, I have already explained the call centre is not my employer.  These two points aside, you make a fair comment.

I will start by saying that I do not mange call centres so anything I say here would be passing on comments from different people I know that do manage them; my own current logistical experiences; and a little bit of personal opinion. 

Given the number of complaints on this board it appears that many call centres are struggling and wait times are long, it seems to be industry wide.  Let us look at the logistical issues first - think about it ... normally that number you dial goes through to an IVR, queued and routed and re-routed through the internal exchange to an operator (very much a simplification).  But the operators are no longer in the office, they are working from home - and would not be pleased if we started passing out personal numbers and listing them on websites.  So we have had to make the system capable of dialing through to these numbers, but in our case this gave us problems with the queuing (far too technical to go into on a chatboard - suffice to say the system in place was designed to work in an office environment, not remote working) - so we have a temporary solution in place ... it is just about held together by 2 elastic bands and 4 pieces of thread that need a lot of TLC and regular greasing (so apologies for the occasional dropped call). The other issue is that even the system we have in place offers a finite number of lines (less than are available in the office environment).

Why do we not fix it properly?  Well, unlike the NHS we do not have a government throwing money and personnel at us so that we can build nightingale hospitals and have any and all equipment we need provided at any cost.  We are a commercial operation that was initially expecting a 12 weeks problem (we are planning for a full year).  We could spend a significant 7 figure sum to address the current issue, but that would also mean stopping all operations (i.e. shut down the call centres - how do you think callers would react to that?) or we could try to keep the systems up and running albeit requiring significant manual work (diverting us from other projects including long term fixes/updates to the system).

I explained the man power issues in an earlier post (as best I understand them).  The choice is reduce the number of staff able to handle the work so that they can train up new call centre staff (I assume you understand that a new call centre worker does not walk in the door and start manning phones), but this will increase the backlog, and probably cause an increase in the number of calls to the call centres (very counter productive) OR they can try to keep as many lines open and operational as possible.  Plus if you start bringing in new people what do you do with them in 12 weeks (or whatever) time?  The call centre managers I work with are very professional and take every opportunity to keep the systems up and running while also protecting their staff (I should also add that they are continually putting pressure on us to increase the bandwidth and number of lines).  

We have had the 'clap for carers' maybe it is time for a clap for call centre workers and delivery drivers.

IvanOpinion

Pollycat said:

IvanOpinion said:

Pollycat said:

I think some companies have been slow to update their websites with information on delays to deliveries.

You are preaching to the converted here.  I have had this discussion on more than one occasion. 
However, without going into detail (sorry for those that crave the minutia), I have come across a couple of (pseudo-)valid reasons for limiting amendments.

In that case, companies (or call centre managers) shouldn't complain when customers clog up their call centre trying to find out what's happened to their delivery because the information on the website is wrong.

They aren't, they are just getting on with it.  I made the original post because I have witnessed first hand how it is affecting individuals, the people at the other ends of the line and the abuse they were having to take.  I was just highlighting that a bit more patience would help everyone.  Sadly that message seems to be going over the head of some.

Pollycat

IvanOpinion said:

They aren't, they are just getting on with it.  I made the original post because I have witnessed first hand how it is affecting individuals, the people at the other ends of the line and the abuse they were having to take.  I was just highlighting that a bit more patience would help everyone.  Sadly that message seems to be going over the head of some.

And accurate, up-to-date information on a company's website would help everybody.

That message seems to be going over the head of some too.

IvanOpinion

Pollycat said:

IvanOpinion said:

They aren't, they are just getting on with it.  I made the original post because I have witnessed first hand how it is affecting individuals, the people at the other ends of the line and the abuse they were having to take.  I was just highlighting that a bit more patience would help everyone.  Sadly that message seems to be going over the head of some.

And accurate, up-to-date information on a company's website would help everybody.

That message seems to be going over the head of some too.

And as I have previously said you are preaching to the converted.  But in many cases that message could also be....

People should actually spend a few minutes reading up-to-date information on a company's website before taking an action that it explicitly asks you not to - that would also help everybody.

Pollycat

IvanOpinion said:

And as I have previously said you are preaching to the converted.  But in many cases that message could also be....

People should actually spend a few minutes reading up-to-date information on a company's website before taking an action that it explicitly asks you not to - that would also help everybody.

Two wrongs do not make one right.

Personally, I would say that companies should be the first to keep their information up to date and then expect their customers to check that information before ringing.

If they don't do that, it's little wonder that customers are aggrieved when they ring up to ask where their next day delivery is only to be told 'oh, that's old information. We've just not updated our website. Deliveries now take a week'.

IvanOpinion

KatrinaWaves said:

blah blah blah .... trolling garbage ...

see point 43