SayNoTo1890.com

Jan Battles spoke with me on Friday evening last in her preparations for this interesting article in yesterdays Sunday Times. Obviously, as you’ll see, I unfortunately didn’t make it into the final draft.

My response to the long wait times suffered in their survey was somewhat similar to my post below where I provided some alternatives to actually calling customer service help lines.

One of my other suggestions was to set a time limit on how long to wait on line. Given that all the companies surveyed were non-essential service providers, there’s no need to wait on the phone for longer than 5 minutes, or 10 minutes if you really need your TV or internet connection sorted out. There’s definitely no need to be waiting for 1hr 13mins.

I also suggested that you should check the hours that the customer service line is open, in case it starts earlier or finishes later than you might expect. I use an Ulster Bank customer service number sometimes, and it’s open until 7pm and I find I always get straight through when I call between 6 and 7.

I was told that eFlow have recently reacted to their problems with long waiting times on their helpline by having someone answer your call immediately, taking your details and then promising to ring you back (within 48hrs). Keeps the wait time down, but doesn’t necessarily fix your problem as quickly as you’d like – especially when the call back comes more than 48hrs later.

Finally, I was told recently of a large Irish service provider who has a special procedure that kicks in whenever a journalist or “person of interest” calls in with a complaint about their service. This special procedure ensures that these peoples customer service problems are resolved within 24hrs. So, we know it’s possible to do it – if only all service providers could look after all of their customers in the same way.