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

NaughtiusMaximus

hugheskevi said:

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.

My thoughts exactly.

When it works live chat is great but too often it doesn't, which is the reason I picked phone in the poll.

Email is a waste of time IMO, responses can be very slow and more often than not don't address the problem I have so I end up calling anyway.

Norman_Castle

I prefer to phone, email is ok. Live chat can vary from perfect to pointless. Being forced to fill in an online form should send a copy of the form to your email address, very simple to set up, why don't companies do this? Forget twitter, that's for children and vacuous presidents.

Marvel1

Depends what I need to contact for, e.g. insurance renewal, I found a cheaper quote, don't want to auto renew, phone them.

General enquiry = email.

Phone busy? No problem, phone next day when they are open at 8 = straight through.

Slinky

Been on the phone to a bank for 1 hour 28 minutes today because they didn't respond to the secure message I sent them on Monday.  I wish the companies would give you a proper indication of their wait times, the 'in excess of 30 minutes' was a severe underestimate.

I would have asked why they'd failed to respond to the message, but I just wanted to get off the phone.

[Deleted User]

I love emailing companies! I can make a rational complaint (write it and remove the ‘shouty’ bits), I also get very excited when I get a reply!

[Deleted User]

I used in enjoy live chat but a 2 hour session with 3 put me off!

[Deleted User]

hugheskevi said:

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.

100% agree. I have experienced both of those issues.

P.A._Ranoia

Email every time except for very simple issues. Ideally via Resolver if the organisation is confident enough in the quality of its service to have registered with Resolver. Failing that to CEO.

Contact forms:

 - May not allow enough space to adequately explain a problem.

 - If questioner is not familiar with a particular organisation's format, distraction caused by navigating it out can lead to an unclear description of the problem.

 - A record is not always available or questioner has to remember to download it.

 - Often request much irrelevant information.

Phone:

 - Long queues.

 - As for chat lines it can be difficult to explain the problem to a junior staff member who is probably reading from a menu and not authorised to go beyond it.

 - Questioner does not always get a record, often the organisation's notes of the conversation bear little relation to what was said.

Chat lines:

  - Can be time consuming because the questioner has to queue then wait while the adviser comprehends the question and/or explain the question to them in different ways.
  - On all but very straightforward issues chat lines can be unproductive. Advisers manning them are often junior staff who, when they do not know the answer, have an annoying habit of answering a different question to that asked. One reason for this might be because they must come up with an answer under pressure due to interacting in real time. An email, however, gives the adviser time to consider fully and respond when properly thought through.

 - Advisers are often junior staff who do not have authority to take remedial action.

 - Similarly the questioner may not give of their best because required to think on their feet.

Yahoo_Mail

I'm happy to use live chat, but I find firms claims regarding staffing numbers for phone calls is complete and utter bullspit.

Working from home for Customer Services (or any over the phone job) has been possible and viable for well over a decade.  There's no reason why they shouldn't have had near 100% coverage for their staff within a few weeks of lockdown.  Anyone who is still using this as an excuse is a disgrace.

fairboy

i usually contact by phone so not to wait long answers on email