MSE Poll: How do you prefer to contact customer services?

MSE_Petar

Poll started 6 October 2020

Many firms' phone lines have been overwhelmed during the pandemic. Faced with long waits on the phone, some are trying different contact methods for the first time. This week, we want to know which you like best.

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BrewWolf

I work for a university and we have offered live chat for the last couple of years. It always frustrates me to hear people waiting for ages to get through on the phones when live chat has so many advantages - you don't have to wait as long (if at all), you have everything written down so you can absorb the information and reply in your own time, you can save a copy for reference later on, you don't have to spell out names and email addresses etc. (decreasing the likelihood of mistakes). I also think it's probably less daunting for an 18 year old worried about their future to type than pick up the phone. Plus, you can multitask! I know some of the students who did use live chat were chatting to numerous universities at once. For me using live chat with companies, I like that I can be getting on with other things while the person at the other end finds out the answers to my questions ...much better than listening to hold music!

Bonnypitlad

I prefer email if the firm offers that option, some don’t give their email address or it’s a “donotreply”, if their “ contact form” is used I don’t receive a copy of my message 
Phone calls are a waste of time , they’re not worth the paper they’re not written on”

UncleNorm

I am quite prepared to use the chat option, but in my experience the questions they are capable of answering are so basic  that I can find the answers myself. Today I tried the Vodafone chat to try to cancel Spotify on my daughter's phone. First response: "We are sorry to lose you as a customer..." Earlier I tried to use the Santander chat. My wife and I have a joint account to which we both have online access. Mine is paperless but for some reason she still gets printed statements through the post, which immediately go in the bin. The online chat suggested a course of action which proved to be useless in this instance. What I need is the ability to speak to a human, preferably within 30 minutes. Fat chance.

BrewWolf

UncleNorm said:

I am quite prepared to use the chat option, but in my experience the questions they are capable of answering are so basic  that I can find the answers myself. Today I tried the Vodafone chat to try to cancel Spotify on my daughter's phone. First response: "We are sorry to lose you as a customer..." Earlier I tried to use the Santander chat. My wife and I have a joint account to which we both have online access. Mine is paperless but for some reason she still gets printed statements through the post, which immediately go in the bin. The online chat suggested a course of action which proved to be useless in this instance. What I need is the ability to speak to a human, preferably within 30 minutes. Fat chance.

Good point - I think the live chat should be manned by real people, the live chat bots are rarely very helpful! 

MovingForwards

Secure message / emails for anything I can / am happy to wait a few weeks for.

Phone / live chat if I need an immediate answer / have to alter something and it can't be done online or I can't find out how to do it myself.

Fitzmichael

I use the CEO email address. I assume the CEO doesn't get to see it, but I always get a swift reply, sometimes by phone, from an aide who's fully informed and can take appropriate action, which the Customer service responders sometimes can't do. 

Torry_Quine

I use live chat when available. The benefits of a real person and written down.

hugheskevi

I prefer Life Chat, but often find two major drawbacks

1. Many companies limit what the operators can do, so I am commonly told I will need to call them to perform the requested action. As I also cannot perform the action online myself - else I would not be contacting them - this is very frustrating.
2. Companies that have staff dealing with too many Live Chats at the same time, resulting in very long waits between interactions.

belle_de_jour

I prefer where possible to have a paper trail, particularly if it's a complex query, so tend to use email or secure messages.  If it's urgent or a simple "how do I" query then I try phoning.  I've found live chat to be variable, depending on whether it's a real person or a bot.

Sandtree

Like others, I like the paper trail aspect of Live Chat and the instant response aspect -v- email etc, the downside though is a lot can be robotic (if not an actual robot) and even less empowered than their telephone counterparts. Even presentationally it doesnt lend itself to dealing with complex matters/long back stories.

If its for a more complex matter I can sometimes be tempted to email if its non-urgent or telephone. Similarly sometimes its good to just chat through some things and sometimes this is done easier on the phone.

Social Media is generally only used to try and get some traction via the "bad PR" element but most now have their separate IDs so their replies dont appear on main feeds and some digital firms clearly play nicely on social media but then back to the same poor service once you are back in private conversation.