Report 'sorry we're experiencing unusually high call volumes' firms

johnnybaloney

Zopa after *emailing* them, they tell you right away there is no point of calling:

We wanted to let you know that your email has arrived safely. We’re currently receiving a higher volume of emails than normal and our phone lines are very busy at the moment.

Another case not covered by the tool, not sure what to put in the waiting time as I didn't call.

johnnybaloney

Another rarity I came across. This time it's EE on Twitter. Messaged them, answered the automated questions only to get this:

Sorry, all of our guides are resting at the moment.

Our opening hours are 8AM - 9PM Monday to Friday and 8AM - 8PM Saturdays and Sundays.

That was at 11am. How unlucky at the very moment I popped them a message *everyone* happened to be resting. That's some next level bull 🤡

TheHeatingEngineer

I note that some want to report companies giving a long wait, coupled with, maybe, then killing the call. That probably needs a different tool.

As I understand it, MSE want to outlaw the "unusually high volume of calls" message in the financial sector only.

Although, I suppose, long waits affect the moral of the nation to a degree, so I would agree to the idea of "outing" companies giving poor telephone/chat/email service etc.

However, in my view, just a "high volume of calls"-message is equally bad. It implies, thinking specifically of the NHS 111 service today, that they are really saying "Too many <swear-word> patients are calling with their inconvenient ailments".

I have begun a complaint and asked for the message to say "There is a long queue". No more numerical inferences are necessary. I note that the call centres don't say "We have too few agents available". The mantra is clearly "blame the caller first".

Although maybe the message: "There is a long queue" is that same as "there is a high volume of calls"? It is but with a different emphasis, I think.

I know that telephony systems can count the queue length. The software holds a list of calls and therefore knows the queue length. I suspect this may be more involved with a nationwide system but there are numbers it could be speak to the caller.

If we view the above from MSE's point of view - as much as users outside the organisation can - the above is asking MSE to solve a national problem outside of the financial sector- the NHS being outside.

As MSE is clearly trying to solve at least part of the problem (in the financial sector), we have to ask why national issues are left to the Martin Lewis' of the nation to raise to prominence, that the government should actually have under it's belt. Although when you consider issues like BREXIT (and many others, too numerous to mention) we have to ask if our political systems are fit for purpose...

... and at that point I wonder if a moderator will slap an "off-piste" note across my screen...

YorkieB

HMRC should be on this list. Apart from the "all our lines are busy" messages, after you've held on for 20 minutes or so you may get a message saying that they only cover certain issues and may not be able to answer your question anyway!

johnnybaloney

Can we add Royal Mail to the next stage of this exercise please? They are "unusually busy" and have trouble with estimating the wait time too. Told approx. 10 minutes wait, it's been 20 minutes and still waiting...

johnnybaloney

Two months on Royal Mail are still "busier than normal"

@MSE_James It's been a year or maybe longer since this exercise started, when can we expect the findings to be published?

saajan_12

IMO there should be a limit on what % of the time you can say 'unusually high call volumes'. If you're saying it all the time, then that becomes the new 'usual' and you just need to add agents to deal with it. If it was say upto 15% of the time then sure, put a warning that you're at the peak of call volumes and it might be hard or expensive to flex the number of agents that quickly. 

Currently it feels like its a free pass for having insufficient agents by saying that they warned you.