Doesn't anyone answer the phone nowadays?

[megilleland]

Companies are not connecting with their customers/clients at all on the phone. It so easy, just pick up the phone when it rings - No not some recorded message telling you are in a never ending queue or telling you to visit their website which doesn't contain the information you are looking for. Strange that when you need to make a payment you get straight through at once. Wait till we are connecting with AI robots when the local staff are sacked and offices closed and we are all floating around in the ether!

[Hereford Voice]

On 08/11/2024 at 11:10, megilleland said:

Companies are not connecting with their customers/clients at all on the phone. It so easy, just pick up the phone when it rings - No not some recorded message telling you are in a never ending queue or telling you to visit their website which doesn't contain the information you are looking for. Strange that when you need to make a payment you get straight through at once. Wait till we are connecting with AI robots when the local staff are sacked and offices closed and we are all floating around in the ether!

Yes, absolute nightmare 

[twowheelsgood]

I find emails are ignored, phone calls are generally either in a huge queue or never answered. That said, Direct Line are good at telephone calls - you can ask them to call you back, rather than wait in a queue, and they do. My general preferred route is 'live chat' - I have had success every time with this. Write your question beforehand to ensure you have the facts, and copy and paste it. You increasingly have to get past the bot questions first, but there is a route to a human. You can also get a transcript of the conversation when it finishes, which is a useful record.

[megilleland]

A friend who lives in the country and depends on her phone to organise doctor and hospital visits had trouble with BT who told her they would be repairing her line which had ceased functioning. Failure to visit her after 3 days she phoned BT on my mobile to complain and get a further a visit to repair yesterday. She was told that her technical problem had been dealt with through an office in Ireland, may as well been in India!

Seems a regular occurence:

https://www.theguardian.com/money/2024/nov/13/bt-has-left-my-80-year-old-dad-without-a-landline-for-months

 

[twowheelsgood]

I think it's a bit of a lottery as to who handles the initial enquiry and whether they send it in the right direction. I had a fault on my phone line a few months ago and used BT's online fault test and report - worked well and I was told it would be fixed within 5 days. In fact they did it in 2. I didn't speak to a human through the whole process, which may be why it went well.

I had to contact BT yesterday about a mistake on my bill - I used the chat facility, got through within a few minutes and we worked through and resolved the issue quite quickly. They even offered to record it as a formal complaint when we were done, which I did and it's in the system at the moment.