"All of our agents are currently busy..."

SiliconChip

As there is no Consumer Rights issue you should have posted on the Praise, Vents & Warnings board (although personally I think your complaint has little basis, it's just the way business works).

TELLIT01

They are not lying or misleading.  They may have insufficient agents to handle the volume of calls, but the information being provided is accurate.

born_again

Davesquire said:

No they are not! [Insert company name] simply doesn't pay for sufficient customer service - despite your millions of profit. 
Why do we have to accept such a misleading statement - whether banks, insurance companies, large retailers or any other business?
COVID isn't an excuse. Call centres can operate from home whilst isolating. Many do.
So why doesn't [insert whichever supposed consumer protection body - as that is as confusing as anything else] do something about it and stop this lie?

Try working in a call center. we have had hundreds of available roles advertised since pre covid. No one wants them. Pay/perks/holidays is very good as well.

You will find that no matter how many staff you have, there will be times when people have to wait.
In my role. My calls can be anything from 5 mins to over a hour depending on the issue. Also we can at times be sat waiting for calls, very few & far between & often evenings when people are out enjoying themselves or have calls waiting hours when big companies go bust. 

Believe me it is not a lie. What do you expect companies to have a 121 staff to customer ratio? Would you as a customer be prepared to pay the extra? I bet not...
Everyone wants cheap...

Ergates

mark_cycling00 said:

A single customer service agent can deal with 3x more customers through online chat than on the phone.
If more people used the chat tools then there could well be enough agents available.

That's a business problem though, they shouldn't be passing that on to the customers.

mjm3346

If they have 1 agent or 1,000 agents and they are all busy then they are all busy.

TELLIT01

I did have the crazy reversed situation recently.  I answered the phone to be told that all their agents are busy and they will call me again later!  They initiated the flamin' call.  Thank you British Gas.

Thrugelmir

Davesquire said:

No they are not! [Insert company name] simply doesn't pay for sufficient customer service - despite your millions of profit. 
Why do we have to accept such a misleading statement - whether banks, insurance companies, large retailers or any other business?
COVID isn't an excuse. Call centres can operate from home whilst isolating. Many do.
So why doesn't [insert whichever supposed consumer protection body - as that is as confusing as anything else] do something about it and stop this lie?

Perhaps you should take time to understand the complexieties and cost of running an operation. How much are you prepared to pay for a personalised service?  Easy to be an armchair critic and waffle. 

born_again

IvanOpinion said:

Two groups that can cause problems are time wasters and serial complainers. 

Not forgetting the group that have a rant about having been kept waiting on hold... Well if you stopped telling me something I already knew I can see the call board with the number of callers waiting & how long the longest is.. I could answer the next call faster. But no. Now I have to log a complaint & waste even more time. 🤦‍♀️

Sandtree

Ergates said:

mark_cycling00 said:

A single customer service agent can deal with 3x more customers through online chat than on the phone.
If more people used the chat tools then there could well be enough agents available.

That's a business problem though, they shouldn't be passing that on to the customers.

Businesses respond to customers... customers tell business that price is the most important thing then staff will be shed to save costs and achieve lower prices.

IvanOpinion

born_again said:

IvanOpinion said:

Two groups that can cause problems are time wasters and serial complainers. 

Not forgetting the group that have a rant about having been kept waiting on hold... 🤦‍♀️

I am not sure if it still is, but that used to be one of the call centre xmas party challenges, who would tell the biggest lie about how long they were on hold.

The customer does not realise that the call centre operator can generally see exactly how  long they were on hold. If only they could respond when someone says 'I have been on hold for nearly half an hour' with 'Oh, our system shows it was just over 3 minutes'.