Report 'sorry for unusually high call volumes' recorded messages

LightFlare

 wages have risen yet customers/consumers don’t want to pay more for services. Therefore cuts are made

In a lot of cases wages have increased by 10% (minimum wage) 

The question is, as a consumer would you rather pay 10% more for the same level of service or pay the same and have a degraded service (not that we get to directly chose)

Andy_L

LightFlare said:

 wages have risen yet customers/consumers don’t want to pay more for services. Therefore cuts are made

In a lot of cases wages have increased by 10% (minimum wage) 

The question is, as a consumer would you rather pay 10% more for the same level of service or pay the same and have a degraded service (not that we get to directly chose)

Not sure there are many businesses where wages account for 100% of business costs 

HHarry

Chieveley said:

I was going to use Matins new reporting tool to report an online version of a queue, but it's only collecting telephone queues. I have tried to reach my insurer with a question, and they only provide an emergency claim line number. I have opened a chat box at 10.02 am and as at 10.18 no one has replied. I tried last week and bailed after 15 minutes then. I thought I would have been contacted about renewing insurance but not a peep that reached my postbox/inbox

Be thankful you’re not using Virgin Media’s chat function.  That was over 90 minutes (on 2 occasions) before getting a response.

Granadalad

Called HMRC at 13:51 today. 44 minute wait to be answered. The MSE reporting facility doesn't have an option to cite HMRC.

Hoenir

Granadalad said:

Called HMRC at 13:51 today. 44 minute wait to be answered. The MSE reporting facility doesn't have an option to cite HMRC.

The more people use their Personal Tax Account online. The better the service will become for everyone. 

prowla

It's the usual unusually high volume of calls.

gokhart

I just tried to log an issue with my bank in Martin's reporting tool.

On the final question "How long did you have to wait until you could speak to someone" – there needs to be an option for "The company terminated the call".
In my case it was to do with switching a current account, the automated system said 'if you are switching to us or from us press 1', on pressing 1 the automated voice said 'Please call back later' and terminated the call. Tried the webchat and they've just told me to call that same number.

MatthewGaskin

If you have an HP printer or scanner, it has been revealed that HP are deliberately making callers wait a minimum of 15 minutes on the phone to try and make people give up and get an answer elsewhere. 

HP adds 15 minutes waiting time for telephone support calls • The Register

[Deleted User]

MatthewGaskin said:

If you have an HP printer or scanner, it has been revealed that HP are deliberately making callers wait a minimum of 15 minutes on the phone to try and make people give up and get an answer elsewhere. 

HP adds 15 minutes waiting time for telephone support calls • The Register

Almost all companies are making it more difficult to contact support. I wouldn't be surprised if other companies do this too. The favourite is to force the customer to choose from a set of irrelevant options, each of which leads to an automated response which does not address the problem. In the unlikely event you do get through to a person, they'll say you've contacted the wrong department but don't worry, they'll transfer you, at which point you'll wait another 20 minutes before the call is terminated.

This is one element of consumer law that would be very easy to regulate, but because there's no reason to do it from an economic perspective, nothing gets done. If people were finding it difficult to make a purchase then that would be regulated immediately, because otherwise the economy would slow and that would reflect badly on government, but since most of these calls are after-sales and contractual issues, nobody cares as it's only the individual who suffers.

brianposter

I can only support the previous poster. A simple regulation that requires businesses to answer their customer telephone lines faster than their sales lines, and an office of half-a-dozen people to enforce that regulation would soon see the problem disappear.