Firms not replying to emails any more?

MsMoon

Is it just me or are companies becoming worse & worse at replying to emails? I've just spent weeks trying to get 2 firms to simply send me an invoice! No wonder the country is going to the dogs!

maisie_cat

I'm still waiting for somebody from the council to get back to me, it's been a year

joedenise

maisie_cat said:

I'm still waiting for somebody from the council to get back to me, it's been a year

Why aren't you chasing them up?  I've always found our local council to be very responsive.  Is it possible to phone them rather than just emailing?  It's often better than email because they have to respond to you - they can't just ignore you if you're on the phone!

JIL

I emailed a well known electric company regarding my feed in tariff and received an auto response to say they were 3 months behind. 

I would also suggest looking to see if the place you are emailing does an online chat with a real person and not a chat bot. 
Sometimes you wont get a response to an email due to security issues. With online chat you can do security with them.

ZsaZsa

joedenise said:

maisie_cat said:

I'm still waiting for somebody from the council to get back to me, it's been a year

Why aren't you chasing them up?  I've always found our local council to be very responsive.  Is it possible to phone them rather than just emailing?  It's often better than email because they have to respond to you - they can't just ignore you if you're on the phone!

Our council no longer has a telephone line for most departments, only email. The only telephone number that they seem to be concerned with retaining is the one to pay council tax

MsMoon

JIL said:

I emailed a well known electric company regarding my feed in tariff and received an auto response to say they were 3 months behind. 

I would also suggest looking to see if the place you are emailing does an online chat with a real person and not a chat bot. 
Sometimes you wont get a response to an email due to security issues. With online chat you can do security with them.

One of the firms is just a small family firm - they basically just have emails or the phone. It's just my experience but across the board both small outfits and large are becoming slower and slower in responding to even the simplest request. Maybe they are spending too much time virtue signalling on Twitter and all the rest of it to bother with basic customer service!

JIL

MsMoon said:

JIL said:

I emailed a well known electric company regarding my feed in tariff and received an auto response to say they were 3 months behind. 

I would also suggest looking to see if the place you are emailing does an online chat with a real person and not a chat bot. 
Sometimes you wont get a response to an email due to security issues. With online chat you can do security with them.

One of the firms is just a small family firm - they basically just have emails or the phone. It's just my experience but across the board both small outfits and large are becoming slower and slower in responding to even the simplest request. Maybe they are spending too much time virtue signalling on Twitter and all the rest of it to bother with basic customer service!

I agree, sad to say but emails are getting dated, so last decade.

I did email our local council who replied to say they had passed the email on and 4 months later I got a response to say I see you have phoned and sorted out the matter.
I dont think I would have bothered to show they took so long to respond.

MsMoon

JIL said:

MsMoon said:

JIL said:

I emailed a well known electric company regarding my feed in tariff and received an auto response to say they were 3 months behind. 

I would also suggest looking to see if the place you are emailing does an online chat with a real person and not a chat bot. 
Sometimes you wont get a response to an email due to security issues. With online chat you can do security with them.

One of the firms is just a small family firm - they basically just have emails or the phone. It's just my experience but across the board both small outfits and large are becoming slower and slower in responding to even the simplest request. Maybe they are spending too much time virtue signalling on Twitter and all the rest of it to bother with basic customer service!

I agree, sad to say but emails are getting dated, so last decade.

I did email our local council who replied to say they had passed the email on and 4 months later I got a response to say I see you have phoned and sorted out the matter.
I dont think I would have bothered to show they took so long to respond.

And on this occasion it's not even that I was wanting something from them - I was asking for an invoice so I could pay them!

CoastingHatbox

Larget companies/institutions are increasingly trying to get all enquiries answered by AI augmented bots.

Employing staff to run phone lines and answer email enquiries is expensive - so I suspect they make the experience as inconvenient as possible.

Which sucks on those rare occasions an actual human needs to understand your situation and give appropriate advice or take appropriate action.