Should larger businesses pay for your personal time lost using help facilities?

Davesquire

I have found myself losing an increasing amount of my personal time dealing with poor administration, product quality/description/instructions/etc. when contacting large organisations.

This is especially the case when using bots ( capable of solving problems of 7 year olds and below),

or the good old “ We’re sorry, but all of our agents are busy right now”

- translation: “As a £multi-billion organisation, we’re not prepared to provide an adequate back office to resolve our mess”.

Isn’t it about time that we were compensated for that loss in personal time?

flaneurs_lobster

I'm sure you don't mean the poll to be taken seriously.

Take one example.

If I want to renew my car insurance I use an online comparison site, get coverage, drive my car. Any changes/queries/claims to that policy then I'm on hold to their helpline for what seems like hours.

The insurance costs £200/yr.

I could use a broker (as I used to), they do the searching for the best policy, sort out the form-filling. If I have any changes/queries/claims to that policy then I talk to my broker and they sort it out.

The insurance costs £400/yr.

Which would you choose?

I can somehow see some merit in considering compensation when there is no choice in the method of communication with statutory bodies (Government, Local Authority etc) but when your choice of supplier of goods or services is predicated largely on price then you will have to accept the service levels that go with this.

Albermarle

 No, It’s all part of being British and taking one for the team.

Presumably it is just as bad/worse in many other countries.

LightFlare

I would respond fully - but you need to pay me £5 for my time and effort

swingaloo

How do you quantify your personal time?

Davesquire

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81968461#Comment_81968461

I'll send you a thimble of oil - probably more valuable.

Davesquire

Hours. In the same way that businesses do.

Pollycat

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81973914#Comment_81973914

But how much per hour?

Minimum wage?

CEO of a multi-national company?

MothballsWallet

Yes, we should get compensated for excessive wait/enquiry times.

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81974322#Comment_81974322

Use the same system as the courts do - Litigant in Person rate, unless a higher rate is proven.

Grumpy_chap

Well, if these organisations had to pay for your time, the companies would probably treat that like any other expense, add mark up and profit and then increase the cost of the products and services sold to recover their corporate financial position.

Chief_of_Staffy

Yes, we should get compensated for excessive wait/enquiry times.

Compensation should not be necessary. If governments legislated on things that actually make people's lives better, then a minimum support level would be written into law. Easy to do and of clear benefit. Failure to meet target = big fine. And even if, like our governments, you don't care about people's quality of life, think of the potential productive time wasted trying to get support from these companies. If every adult in the UK spends an unnecessary two hours a week (I wish), then that's an annual total of 648,000 man-years wasted by adults in the UK who could otherwise spend that time working or spending.