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

mattyprice4004

IvanOpinion said:

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'.

I've worked in call centres for a lot of my life - both as call staff and a team leader. 

There was never anything stopping us saying this to customers - but we had to phrase it as if we were surprised. 
'Oh really? I'll ask IT to investigate that, as it shows you were only on hold for 1 minute 35 seconds here!' 

The comment on the first page about it all being tightly monitored and run efficiently did make me chuckle; in one centre where I was brought in to manage a team of 20, there was literally no way of keeping accurate tabs on staff.
People took the mickey left, right and centre - and when I actually started to keep an eye on the team I had 3 different complaints lodged with HR as they were so used to dossing and being paid for it... 

Grumpy_chap

Maybe, to help you feel better, after all the options to get you to the queue to speak to the people you think you need to speak to, there should be two further options:
"For a top-level, caring and compassionate service, please press 1.  For anything else, please press 2"

Press 1 and you get "all of our agents are busy, we are really sorry about the delay, your call is important to us, you are number 25 billion in the queue"

Press 2 and you get "we don't have enough agents so you'll have to wait, but really we hope you'll get bored and dial off so we don't need to bother."

Given my experience calling BA on Sunday, option 2 would have been a massive service enhancement.

Money_Grabber13579

I think companies could do a lot to help themselves here, without spending a lot more money employing extra staff (which they won’t want to do because more cost = less profit). However, if they published real time information about the current length of the queue and information as to the busiest and quietest periods over the last 7 days, customers could then make a reasonably informed choice as to when to call. The fact that they don’t makes me think they must be embarrassed by the level of customer service and the lines are rammed all of the time i.e. they don’t actually employ enough staff.

RandomUserID

Yeah, ya think?

sheramber

bet time to call is as soon as lines open so you are at the front of the queue.

Davesquire

Thrugelmir said:

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. 

A bit harsh there, Thrugelmir. Perhaps if these businesses stopped throwing £millions at advertising which features lots of happy customers all receiving perfect service and instead concentrated on delivering a reasonable level of customer service I wouldn't have to be an armchair critic or "waffle". 
As for many other responses, I see why we get less than satisfactory service. You all expect and accept it.
I'm pleased to be the exception and expect better. Also, I'm happy to pay more to receive better, but that is seldom the case.

powerful_Rogue

Davesquire said:

Thrugelmir said:

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. 

A bit harsh there, Thrugelmir. Perhaps if these businesses stopped throwing £millions at advertising which features lots of happy customers all receiving perfect service and instead concentrated on delivering a reasonable level of customer service I wouldn't have to be an armchair critic or "waffle". 
As for many other responses, I see why we get less than satisfactory service. You all expect and accept it.
I'm pleased to be the exception and expect better. Also, I'm happy to pay more to receive better, but that is seldom the case.

Doesn't really bother me. Only call i've had to make is to my bank, and luckily that's First Direct so they answer near enough straight away. Anything else, stick it on speaker and carry on with what i'm doing.

As long as 999 is answered quickly if ever needed, i'm not fussed about anything else.