Report 'sorry for unusually high call volumes' recorded messages

prowla

For some companies the "unusually high volume of calls" seems the usual.

DullGreyGuy

born_again said:

As someone working on the other end of this. A real knock on effect of this is. People that complain they have been waiting X minutes, rather than simply getting on with why they were calling. In regulated area's. This means a complaint has to be logged. Leading to further delays to people waiting.

No matter what you can never have enough bums on seats to take calls when there are problems.

Thankfully the FCA updated its definition of a complaint some time ago from simply an expression of dissatisfaction by adding "that the complainant has suffered (or may suffer) financial loss, material distress or material inconvenience"

Inevitably material inconvenience is going to be subject to interpretation but most firms arent interpreting a generic complaint that the queue was long as material on its own unless added to that the delay has caused them to be late for work or something. 

You can have enough, if you want to, but it's very expensive to do so, especially if you want no call queuing 24/7. Consumers dont want to pay a substantial premium for knowing someone will always answer their call within 5 rings and when you are buying champagne at lemonade prices something has had to be compromised on. 

brianposter

Or, alternatively, one could suspect that doing away with significant telephone waiting times is one of the easiest ways to improve national productivity.

ReflectionsinaFIAT

Royal London yesterday and today, 60 min 'wait' time( I think they mean waiting time?).
Small Claims Court the worst, never answer the phone.

Mutton_Geoff

Warner Leisure Hotels. Every time I call them "unusually high call volumes, expected wait 15 mins, press 1 for a call back, won't lose place in queue". Their callback seems to take 60-90 mins so either they fib or you don't keep your place after all.

Murphybear

Mutton_Geoff said:

Warner Leisure Hotels. Every time I call them "unusually high call volumes, expected wait 15 mins, press 1 for a call back, won't lose place in queue". Their callback seems to take 60-90 mins so either they fib or you don't keep your place after all.

We’ve had loads of Warner holidays, never had to wait for more than a few minutes on the phone

Chrysalis

I have heard this message a lot, even when they answer in a few seconds, I think entities have just left it on all the time now to discourage callers.