I always thought that “We are experiencing higher than normal call volumes” just meant “We are experiencing normal call volumes and we underinvest in customer service.”
I don’t remember the last time I called Air Canada Aeroplan where the hold time wasn’t at least an hour. One of the best things about status is jumping to the top of the queues so that my time isn’t wasted. Although that isn’t always a help. During the pandemic Delta Air Lines hold times got up to 41 hours for Diamond members.
It turns out, though, that some companies make customers wait on hold even when they have phone reps available?
It’s lower cost to get customers to do self-service online, whether making transactions on a company’s website or looking up information themselves. But if you make it too easy to get customer service by phone, customers won’t do that.
HP had added 15 minute holds as a requirement to get phone service for PC and printer customers.
At the beginning of a call to telephone support, a message will be played stating: “We are experiencing longer waiting times and we apologize for the inconvenience. The next available representative will be with you in about 15 minutes.
“To quickly resolve your issue, please visit our website support.hp.com to check out other support options or find helpful articles and assistant to get a guided help by visiting virtualagent.hpcloud.hp.com.”
…”The wait time for each customer is set to 15 minutes – notice the expected wait time is mentioned only in the beginning of the call.” The message will be read out three times during the wait time, after the initial reading.
The reason for the change? Getting people to figure it out themselves using online support. As HP put it: “Encouraging more digital adoption by nudging customers to go online to self-solve,” and “taking decisive short-term action to generate warranty cost efficiencies.”
Leaked documents about the change embarrassed HP, and forced them to reverse course. After years of long hold times, though, Aeroplan’s holds haven’t really sped up sadly.
Sometimes call volumes are higher than normal – bad weather events cancelling flights – airlines don’t do even more to boost call center capacity during these events because it’s costly, as well.
This is the sad state of customer service today.
I have black listed some airlines due to their obscene wait times.
I don’t mind holding all that much if there is silence or music on hold – I just put the call on speaker and do work or read another web page. What I hate is when they have announcements – either advertising or thanking me for continuing to hold – which makes it impossible to concentrate on something else.
This has become less of a problem as my Pixel has “Hold for Me” built in, where I don’t hear anything while on hold, and I am notified when a live agent has come online. This seems to work on about 80% of the number I call where I have to hold, and I believe it only works on toll-free numbers.
“due to the enormous success of our latest widget, our hold times are longer than usual” is one of the most disingenuous things to hear, ” No guys, the reason is that you’re too cheap to staff up properly, Just makes me thing that the company I’m on the phone with is dishonest and that I’d rather find a different vendor…. which I often do.
The last few times I called a non airline customer service, I got the “we are experiencing higher than usual call volume”, but as soon that bot finished saying that, I was instantly connect to a human. This was for the same company.
Seeing that every company does that, we all know they’re lying. Maybe they should lay off the holding robot.
The IRS has a way to correct Cal Volumes. they say Please call back on another day then disconnect. Talk about F U.
I have wait times of 60+ min then a disconnect.
My mother worked in a bank and at 5pm she would say hello hello can not hear you then move to the next caller at 5 the call would switch to call back tomorrow. que was empty she went home.
I recall in a company I worked for back in late 2010’s, we did the actual math for the cost of customer contact per point:
Average text message/web chat: $0.80
Average website/form inquiry: $1.20
Average email: $2.13
Average telephone call: $14.30
That’s how much it cost our organization when you put the numbers and dollars behind it. Not everyone is similar, but this was ours.
Just spent 1hr 15 mins on hold with Aeroplan at 7am on a Sunday…..gave up. Self service isn’t available to me on their site (which I would have availed myself of if available as waiting on hold is slightly less attractive to me than poking my eyeballs out with bamboo spikes). Complete failure of customer service. And this is not even a change to an award I am initiating – (half of) my award flights were changed due to schedule changes……
Not just on purpose. Saving money by not hiring enough people.
What I hate is the suggestion to go online to fix your problem. If I could do that, I wouldn’t call.
All those corporate CEOs need to stop this crap. Damn idiots. It is going to get worse.
“Call volumes are higher than normal” is just a other arrow that long ago joined “Please listen to all options, as our menu has changed” in the quiver of “F#$& you, customer”
Just a lie by the company you are calling. If I call customer service it means I cannot do what I need to do online or the instructions for doing it are unclear. Some of the time it is due to a website that is not logical. Getting a customer service rep online at Amazon can be frustrating but some types of inquiries simply are not available with the website or with the online service bot. Setting up an extra seat by Singapore Airlines was not possible online and had horrendous wait times and several calls. Doing the same on JetBlue was easy and was done entirely online without a service call.
While companies should be able to choose the service delivery investment that they prefer, it should be illegal to blatantly lie to the customer. Further, if the lie suggests that business is growing or better than it actually is, that could be a securities and exchange violation. Let’s prosecute one prominent CEO and see how long the practice of deception lasts.
No shit! Been that way for years. Really noticeable when smaller companies use that tactic, and you know that their customers are all calling at the same time.
I will gladly solve the issue at your website. If I could, I would greatly prefer that to calling, even if you answer immediately. But, I’m stuck in thevqueue with those who could but won’t use the website. Improve your damn websites so I can use it. BTW, I’d gladly call a number only for those whose problem can’t be solved on the website under the condition that, if your problem could have been solved on the website, you are cut off with no help.
Gary, I’d file this under ‘captain obvious.’ Of course companies mistreat customers all the time—whether the customers realize it or not is the real question. Thank you for shedding further light on this. I suspect it will only get worse. Even though, there are many requests that could be accomplished via other means (app, website, etc.), still many times the airlines practically require you to call, then in essence dissuade us from resolution with excessive waits. It’s all by-design. I hate it. Everyone hates it. This is is what happens when there is monopolization, regulatory capture, and/or deregulation—we, the consumers, get screwed, and then there’s little recourse for us, but to just ‘take it.’ Shame on these practices.
Now that I’m retired, I’ll make lunch, feed the cat, load the dishwasher, pay my bills, and read the on-line news while I wait.
Had a few hang up on me. Therefore, I’ll can back and demand to talk to a supervisor (which is the KISS OF DEATH for a phone agent). Also, always agree to providing customer feedback if requested before talking with an agent. Another KISS OF DEATH!!!
Same situation when the agent’s command of English is very poor. I’ll state that I cannot understand him/her and I’ll call back. Usually, they will immediately hand me off to someone who has command of the language and I find them more agreeable.
Also, I notice companies are failing to put their contact numbers on bills and the such. I’ll Google till I find a contact number.
Chatbots are absolutely useless!!!!!
Just standardized phases that fail to answer your question.
Worthless technology!!!!!
“I’ll Google till I find a contact number.” Hey all, this recommendation is dangerous. Many have been scammed by searching for “ABCAirlines,” got a bogus/scammer number, called, and were defrauded. Search for the airline’s (or whatever) website and get numbers from real websites.
The funny part about all this is that we would much rather solve our problems online but most companies have crappy websites that don’t allow you to fix even simple problems.
For example, I recently had an order from Google where they shipped something to my old address. It was likely my own fault but I noticed it just after they had assigned the Fedex tracking number. I tried to fix it both with Fedex and with Google on their websites but each of them told me to contact the other company for help so I had to call the Fedex call center which didn’t seem to be very good on the phone but they “escalated” the issue. Keep in mind this was a simple change of delivery address that they never did end up fixing. So their website AND their call center was crap.
I don’t EVER want to call an airline or any other company but the need to fix their IT.
Gary, again, this is a good discussion; I wish we had better consumer advocacy on this and related topics.
Larger companies should be required to offer a ‘call-back’ option and to state the expected ‘time’ within reason (like, ’45 minutes’). Many companies already do this–but some do not. Alas, in the US, as you are well-aware, there are rampant anti-competitive practices at play, either through regulatory capture or from de-regulation, simultaneously, depending on the industry. So, corporate greed and draconian anti-consumer policies have and will continue to proliferate.
Recall how bad it was during the early days of the pandemic (mid-March, April, and May of 2020), where airlines, hotels, online travel agencies, etc. did not allow for easy ways to resolve cancellations, refunds, etc., other than for us to wait on hold for hours or even days. While I appreciated the impossible task then, I also recognize that these companies were likely attempting to protect their cash-flow situations as nearly all business halted. Still, it sucked.
@rdinsf — “I don’t mind holding” (ok, you masochist) if that is your preference, then you do you. But the rest of us do in-fact ‘mind,’ and we deserve better. Don’t shill for the corporate overlords.
@Daniel @Richard Newton — I’m with you on this topic, sirs. These companies are indeed ‘dishonest,’ and as Richard said, are “too cheap to staff up properly.” The greedy corporations use ‘higher call volumes’ as a pretext to justify their mistreatment of us consumers.
@DaninMCI — Yup, it’s ‘by-design’–These companies do not actually want to solve problems. They want to profit off both the very real and also the ‘manufactured’ problems that arise. If they can inconvenience you enough, you might let them keep tens or even hundreds of your dollars.
@tomri — On the IRS, it is not a for-profit corporation–it is literally the government. Maybe we should petition our representatives to properly fund such services, you know, to ensure that we, the public, are served better. Or… ‘burn it all down’ and chaos. Cool. Cool, cool. ‘Great’ plan.
@Paper Boarding Pass — I applaud your self-confidence, sir or madam. Feeling like your actions are a “KISS OF DEATH” sure must feel good, but in reality, these corporations do not care. They are often ‘too big to care’ and think nothing of you or any of us. I wish we had better protections that could actually assist us as consumers. Again, I recognize our leaders are not focused on this.
@Dave W. — This is an underrated comment. Especially with the elderly, who are not ask used to the modern technology and sadly more often fall prey to such scams.
Allot of this is generational. Im 50…for decades i was bombarded with “just call 1800….” ads. Im a gen X who adapts to new tech easily and would rather solve problems myself vs. deal with a developing world call center.
Unfortunately it’s a more difficult transition for some….HOWEVER companies need to stop limiting customer interface options so.we can problem solve. I had several interactions recently where I did every input on line only to find out I HAD to call CS to complete the transaction.
It’s less of an issue with unlimited phone plans these days, but back when we had like 300 free minutes a month on a cell with no landline, these kinds of calls would end up eating up minutes so fast…
Many companies want to force you to take issues online and therefore staffing levels are kept low to “encourage” people to visit a website. So companies have call back features which may not be convenient for time sensitive situations or for people on the go.
The industry might do better to pool their customer services like all One World partners, r all Sky team partners to create better customer service. Most of the time it’s rebooking issues which agents can normally charge you and just do it for the particular airline. Or maybe pooling regional agents from all airlines because most or the delays and cancellations are either regional weather or other issues that affect all airlines. Airline industry is not known for customer experience and excellence in service. They just measure against each other and find a leveling off point to operate.
Ever try to call the Post Office about a package that they say online was delivered but is not to be found?
@jack the lad — So you’re like @tomri above, complaining about ‘the government.’ The Postal SERVICE, like the Internal Revenue SERVICE, is not and should never be like a private, for-profit company. If you want a better experience with these services, maybe we should elect representatives who properly support and fund such services… (What’s that? You want to ‘abolish’ these things that you don’t understand? Yeah, then you’re not a ‘serious’ person.)
@1990
Exactly how many more HUNDREDS of BILLIONS of wasted taxpayer dollars do you want to pour into the Post Office and IRS??? Failed agencies. Comic book ineptitude. Bad attitudes and zero work ethic. And 1990 celebrates their mediocrity and defends it to the death. You have learned nothing from the election. Do you smell what I’m cooking, bruh? It’s a permanent common sense conservative majority.
@Quantum Bullseye — Nice try. Fund these services. They produce more value than they cost.
But the real question: How many trillions of dollars do you want to go to tax cuts for the billionaires and major corporations? Because that is what we are actually doing instead of serving the people. Maybe people will have to experience the ‘suffering’ firsthand to finally wake up.
You and the other fake-triots will undoubtedly try to lie and distract–but, gravity still exists. At some point (hopefully soon), good and decent people are going to have had enough of this silly attempt at ‘austerity’ that you shamelessly bootlick for. Remember, you are still outnumbered.