Why customer service phone lines put you on hold, not simply offer to call back?

[-]

two_beards@reddit

Cos a significant number of people will give up while on hold. This drop off results in less calls going through than if you had to call everyone back, thereby saving a significant amount of money.

Reply

[-]

If you want to save money on support, why bother answering *at all?* Just close it down, "thereby saving a significant amount". You might lose all your customers though. So maybe instead, **actually offer support.**

Reply

[-]

two_beards@reddit

Some services have done exactly that and moved to Web based chat, which is just a placeholder for AI support.

Reply

[-]

RecordingAromatic884@reddit

Because your call is very important to them.

Reply

[-]

Evening-Web-3038@reddit

I have worked in a call centre before, in the operations department. The phrase "we are experiencing unusually high volumes of call" is utter bollocks about 90% of the time. In most circumstances it is entirely possible to plan the entire day to ensure that you have enough people on the phones to handle expected call volumes. That includes factoring in known busy periods, like after work or on a weekend or when a new product is introduced etc. It is only the unexpected stuff (ie the 10%) that gets ya, such as an outage. The problem was always that the company didn't want the associated costs of hiring people, and outsourcing is unattractive at times. So if, for example, you needed 100 people to cover the lines at various points of the day to meet service then the company would employ 75 people and expect miracles. That is why SOME companies are ALWAYS busy when you call up. They are cheapskates. Oh and weirdly enough only certain people tended to like doing outbound calls lol (and often the decent workers). The others took the piss quite a bit and would, for example, hang up after just a few rings and sit around twiddling their thumbs for 10 minutes. Mind you I did work in a shithole place so it might not be a uniform thing lol.

Reply

[-]

shrewdlogarithm@reddit

I've wondered this in long queues for everything from Government bodies to phone companies and even companies I'm trying to give money to. I think the answer is "we don't want to waste our time and money calling you" - it would be too convenient I think - they want to keep you hanging/hope you'll just give-up perhaps There is no lie greater than "Why not visit our website where you can access your account and do many of the things you may need online" << you can NEVER do the thing you're calling about NEVER

Reply

[-]

MiddleAgeCool@reddit

If the company doesn't have enough and the queues are too high, call backs just makes things worse as you're moving the problem to later when people are still queuing. It only really works if you have an arrival pattern with several peaks and troughs over the day. You also have the customers themselves. The answer rates can be woeful, calls go unanswered or pushed to voicemail or answered and have to be rescheduled. This just creating repeat calls and further customer dissatisfaction. If you have budget for callback the money is better spent on online self service solutions and dynamic messaging within the queuing system. Ironically if you used these to handle the substantial percentage of low value calls then the queuing problem would be gone.

Reply

[-]

SnooDonuts6494@reddit (OP)

> call backs just makes things worse as you're moving the problem to later Why? If you have 100 customers, and they *either* spend 1 hour on hold before complaining, *or* are called back an hour later, What's the difference? Other than they're less annoyed.

Reply

[-]

MiddleAgeCool@reddit

If the queues don't have quiet points then your call back is at a time when a different 100 customers are queuing. The agent answering the phone can only do your call back or answer a call from that queue so they do your call back and someone from the queue requests a call back in another hour. You don't help the queue as much as shuffle it to the point of it being unmanageable because you have 100 call backs and 100 people waiting. As I mentioned, call back does work but you need the inbound call arrival pattern to have a dip to handle the call backs. Lots don't but put it in anyway in a desperate attempt to manage call queues.

Reply

[-]

SnooDonuts6494@reddit (OP)

That doesn't make sense. If you have to call 100 people, for 5 minutes each, it's much easier to control when you make the call. Better for both parties. It takes no longer; it merely eradicates the frustration of waiting on hold.

Reply

[-]

FarIndication311@reddit

No, what you've said doesn't make sense. Customers don't pickup the phone like robots, even if they have agreed an exact time, the % who pickup is tiny. As others have said, this actually increases the queues for everyone by a much larger proportion, EG 1 customer outbound contact taking at least 5 times the resource of an inbound one. 5 extra people in your queue for every 1 successful outbound call - and that's on a good day.

Reply

[-]

SnooDonuts6494@reddit (OP)

When someone answers the phone, they are present. Unlike when you reconnect to someone who has been on hold.

Reply

[-]

MiddleAgeCool@reddit

They are present, but to ensure they are present they have to be reserved by the outbound dial so when you answer then you're connected. Let's say you don't answer then that agent is doing nothing for 30 seconds. All those 30 seconds add up and overall reduces the volume of calls that can be handled either as call backs or queued calls. Again, call back does work but you need your business to haver the right conditions for it to work otherwise it becomes counter productive. It's why it's not standard on at all companies. If it was as easy as you've suggested, everyone would be using it.

Reply

[-]

mibbling@reddit

But if you’re trying to call back a hundred people, and you spend thirty seconds calling, waiting for an answer, hanging up, lining up the next call, etc - if most of them don’t answer that’s nearly an hour wasted.

Reply

[-]

Questjon@reddit

Your time costs them nothing and despite the rhetoric customers rarely choose customer service over price.

Reply

[-]

SnooDonuts6494@reddit (OP)

True - and I am guilty of that. I wouldn't pay £40 a month for my mobile, just because it had better customer service than one for £20. That's fair. The two issues I have with that are; 1. When their service works - which it probably does for 95% of the time - I don't need CS. 2. Surely it should be regulated. It's crazy (to me) that we have to jump through hoops to complain about simple things.

Reply

[-]

DigitalStefan@reddit

I'm paying £80/month for fibre gigabit broadband because of the customer service is beyond top-tier. It can be worth it, especially when you've been thoroughly let down by a different company. There are other benefits, like my ISP lets me access quite a lot of what would otherwise be entirely behind-the-scenes tools that only trained support staff would have access to at any other ISP. It's also super trivial to admin more than one account (I make sure my mother has good internet).

Reply

[-]

SnooDonuts6494@reddit (OP)

That's perfectly fine *if* you can afford it. If I had unlimited funds, I'd dine in fine restaurants. However, needs must, so I go to McDonald's instead. The internet is almost as important as electricity and water. It's virtually essential. Job-seekers claiming Universal Credit of £400 per month cannot afford to spend £80 of it on broadband.

Reply

[-]

DigitalStefan@reddit

All fair comments. Except Maccies. Maccies is damn pricey now! Might as well go to a restaurant for the Amish they are charging! Also folk claiming benefits should be on a “social tariff” with their ISP anyway, but I get your point. My internet *has* to work. I don’t have the option of going to the office every day because it’s either a 3 hour each way Uber at around £250 per journey or a 5+ hour combo of still pricey taxis and trains.

Reply

[-]

TheTjalian@reddit

Ironically I just swapped phone contracts because both the reception and service is shit.

Reply

[-]

SnooDonuts6494@reddit (OP)

Right. But if you had to choose between two, One with good reception but shit customer service, The other with shit reception but acceptable customer service, Which would you choose? I'm sure you'd choose the latter - because customer service isn't useful if the phone doesn't work.

Reply

[-]

megthebat49@reddit

Maybe I'm an outlier but I would and I do pay more for proper high quality customer service.

Reply

[-]

worldworn@reddit

I just assumed it was the pretty obvious answer that if you are on hold you are there ready for the cook to continue. If they call you back, you might not answer or be doing something else.

Reply

[-]

MLMSE@reddit

Because they would then have to call everyone back. And most of them would have gone off to do something else by the time they get called back so it would be wasted time. If they keep you hanging on there is the hope you will give up.

Reply

[-]

megthebat49@reddit

Solution to this is to employ the right amount of people. My call centre is one of the few that does. At the busiest time fo year when everyone is calling to pay their annual bill wait times rarely exceed 30 minutes. As such most people are still available to answer if they request a call back, it's quite rare that I encounter an automatic call back where the customer doesn't answer, maybe one or two a month

Reply

[-]

DigitalStefan@reddit

The irony is you can get better customer service from an MVNO like giffgaff who use O2’s network. EE (much as it pains me to say) operate the better overall network, if that’s your main concern. Again though I would go with an MVNO such as Lyca Mobile, although if you want Apple Watch cellular functionality you have to stick with the main 4 operators.

Reply

[-]

megthebat49@reddit

Giffgaff don't even have a customer service phone line I recommend spusu. They have a call centre in the UK with well trained staff. I've called them a couple of times and every time I've not had to wait in much of s queue at all and the person on the other end has been just fantastic. No bs from them, they talk like real humans talk and have a natural conversation and are very pleasant, all while being able to very quickly and efficiently solve your issues. I needed my esim reissued by both spusu and Vodafone as it was not loading into my new phone after being removed from my old one. I purchased a cheap esim so I could make a phone call to both. Vodafone was abysmal. I had to work my way through various menus at a snails pace to then be placed into a 20 minute queue to then be told that they couldn't complete the verification because they couldn't send a text code to my phone (duh the sim isn't working) and I would have go to a physical Vodafone store and get a physical sim reissued, they couldn't even issue me a new esim, had to be a physical one. I called spusu and was immediately connected to an agent, no queue and just 1 menu option to select. From there I verified my details (took 30 seconds), I explained the issue and I was immediately told I'd be sent a replacement esim by email, all she had to do was click a few buttons. While we waited for their computer systems to load everything we had a bit of a chat about upcoming holidays and then she even made sure she waited on the line until I verified I had recently the email with the new esim. Took about 15 minutes tops and everything was sorted, whereas it literally took days to solve the exact same issue with Vodafone. If I had had the same issue with Giffgaff i'd've been waiting potentially weeks for them to answer their emails

Reply

[-]

DigitalStefan@reddit

Well OK, except you’re wrong. giraffes have official support, a tonne of self-help info and the ability for the customer to do things like deal with rapid eSIM stuff. I put this to the test a few days ago. Literally zero problem reissuing an eSIM on a different device.

Reply

[-]

megthebat49@reddit

That was not the case when I left them 7 years ago. Happy to hear they've improved, still not going back

Reply

[-]

DigitalStefan@reddit

7 years ago the "how to do eSIM stuff" landscape was still somewhat immature and I suspect their customer support *wasn't* where it should be. They've come a long way since then. Even now, there are some technical reasons why eSIM is a bit "weird" in how it's handled and a lot goes on behind the scenes to hide the delays you experienced (and likely a lot of people back then). It still takes time to for giffgaff to get a new eSIM, but giffgaff customers don't experience that delay because giffgaff maintain a stocked pool of eSIMs so they can be instantly available to any customer that needs one.

Reply

[-]

megthebat49@reddit

Back then I had a physical sim. I only switched to esim about 6 months ago so your point isn't all that relevant

Reply

[-]

Kimbo-BS@reddit

When it's busy like you mentioned, they are taking calls nonstop, sometimes with only seconds between. So then you would have to pause this automatic system to call someone back... which would lead to more people being a callback... which would then make pretty much every call a callback. When everyone becomes a callback, you will lose a lot of efficiency when people don't answer or aren't ready.

Reply

[-]

megthebat49@reddit

Or, like we do in my call centre, hold that customers position in the queue and once it is their turn initiate an automatic call back. To the call centre there's no difference this way if the customer decides to hold or to get a call back

Reply

[-]

SnooDonuts6494@reddit (OP)

Exactly the same problems occur with people on hold.

Reply

[-]

EvilRobotSteve@reddit

I've worked in customer service. In most call centres now, they're woefully understaffed. Businesses have taken to using automated chatbots which a lot of customers won't even try and use (how many people just keep repeating "speak to human" or similar? For simple queries, chat bots could probably handle it just fine and keep queues down like they're designed to do) I get why, but I used to get so many requests come through to me that I know the chatbot is designed to handle and this just keeps the queues long. And this is the real problem, the queues are ALWAYS long. There's never a good time to call you back. As a customer service person, why would I call you back when there's 20 people still on hold? If you have a service for "press 1 and we'll call you back" if it's automated, the best it can do is put you on an outbound dialler when an agent is free, but because an agent is never free this will never work. If it's not automated, they have to take agents off the phone to go through the callback list. From experience I can tell you that in many cases when people have said "call me back in an hour" they don't pick up when you do call them back and this just wastes more time. Meanwhile the phone queue is getting even longer. I get the frustration, but it won't work because it doesn't address the real problem. The problem that most companies are deliberately understaffing their customer service call centres due to automation and cheap outsourcing to foreign intermediaries. It sucks. For both the customer and the customer service guys. They're getting hammered by call after call after call for the whole shift with no gaps to be able to do callbacks. Then the first 5 mins of every call is the customer justifiably complaining about the wait times and the CS guy apologising, which is making the next guy in the queue wait 5 mins longer etc. TL:DR Companies deliberately understaff customer service departments to save money. This is the result. The staff are too overworked to have any opportunity to call you back and the company probably doesn't really care if you give up or not.

Reply

[-]

megthebat49@reddit

Just a note on how ours works. What it does is hold the customers place in the queue. Outbound and inbound calls are treated the same. In a day I will receive a random mix of outbound and inbound calls. That's probably the best way to implement it but it cost money to develop and only increases customer satisfaction, it doesn't increase operational efficiency, if anything it makes it worse as inevitably some people won't answer their phone and thus you inevitably have agents wasting time waiting for the customer to answer their phone.

Reply

[-]

SnooDonuts6494@reddit (OP)

Apparently, they're in South Africa.

Reply

[-]

Murka-Lurka@reddit

Getting more and more common as similar time zone and English is a main language.

Reply

[-]

megthebat49@reddit

Okay so I work in a call centre here's when we do and don't and why: When the queues are long we offer an automated callback system. Your place is held in the queue and when an agent is available the outbound call will be automatically sent to them, the exact same way an inbound call would be. The only difference on our end as agents is that we have to wait for you to answer and adjust our greeting to make sense. When there is a small issue or system override required and we need to speak with a "supervisor". We will only place you on hold and never offer to call back. This is because we can only call the agent support line with a customer on hold. If we end the call we'll be sent another customer to deal with and even if it's quiet we need approval to make a manual outbound call which would not be approved if it was to call the agent support line. We are only allowed to call the agent support line with a customer on the other line on hold. If there is a large issue that will take time to deal with by emailing a different department we will offer to email you once the issue is resolved. We will only call you if you specifically request it. This is because all manual outbound calls require approval and they are only approved when it is quiet. This means that we cannot actually guarantee you'll get a phone call in a timely manner, you could be waiting days after we actually resolved the issue to get your phone call. We can send an email in a matter of hours. I often stay back 10 or so minutes at the end of my shift to send off emails to customers that I didn't manage to get done in between calls. All call centres have different rules but it's really important to understand that the call centre agent you speak with is usually the bottom of the food chain and has a huge number of rules they cannot break. Any good customer service agent just wants to provide quick, efficient and quality service. Often a manual outbound call is just not a good way to do that and an email is much more efficient

Reply

[-]

thelajestic@reddit

Most likely cost. When you press 1 for someone to call you back, it doesn't just spit out your number to an agent who then manually calls you back when they have time. It's an automated system which queues you, and the system calls you back once you reach the top of the queue. While they are a phone company, that will still cost them money to build and implement if they wanted to keep it in house, and that's a big investment for them to make if it's for something that doesn't really impact their sales. The most likely scenario is that they would go to one of the existing companies who already provide this service and just outsource it, but again that would cost them money. And not just a one-off payment - every individual callback costs money. Source: I worked on getting one of these systems set up where I work. I agree it's very helpful (which is why I wanted to do it) but it's not cheap.

Reply

[-]

abdullaahr7@reddit

Most places I've worked that have had a callback system have it so that callbacks are only done if there are no calls waiting. So if it's busy enough that your waiting on hold, you're not getting a callback for days or weeks anyway

Reply

[-]

FarIndication311@reddit

It os possible, but when I was running a call centre telephone system, the success rate isn't what you might think. The system would agree a 15 minute time slot to call the customer back, based upon our system predicted availability levels of staff. During that time slot the system would make the outbound call and automatically assign it to one of our staff. So we then have staff ready to answer the query, complete with the customer details ready on their screen. Customer's only picked up the phone between 10% and 20% of the time. That's after 3 attempts during the pre agreed time slot. Long story short, in this ise case at least, it doesn't work.

Reply

[-]

SnooDonuts6494@reddit (OP)

If they don't pick up, it makes absolutely no difference to you. Just like if they're on hold and then don't respond. "in the time it took to attempt 3 outbound calls" - that can be automated. Easily.

Reply

[-]

FarIndication311@reddit

Yes, it is automated. You have a staff member waiting for the customer to pick up the phone. You don't get the system to make the call without a staff member being ready, as it could be some time until the next staff member is available. If you are outbound calling 3 times, with each taking 1 minute, that is 3 minutes of staff time. If your average handle time is 3 minutes, then you've missed the opportunity to handle 1 customer inbound call in that time. Then take into account that out of 10 calls you attempt, so up to 30 minutes total staff time, perhaps 2 will be answered. This is a high level summary, but independent industry experts weren't surprised by our results. This is why next to no one does this.

Reply

[-]

RealLongwayround@reddit

I answer 999 and 101 calls for a living. We have ten Call Back slots (for 101), because we know it helps to give a better service, but they cost money hence there are only ten.

Reply

[-]

SnooDonuts6494@reddit (OP)

Why would it cost anything (other than a totally trivial sum)?

Reply

[-]

RealLongwayround@reddit

You would have to ask the finance team!

Reply

[-]

Big-Masterpiece-316@reddit

Lazy people don't want to call back.

Reply

[-]

creepinghippo@reddit

Problem is, I don’t trust them to call back. Honestly, I don’t trust them to answer and not hang up on me either. I have little trust in companies entirely really.

Reply

[-]

ImSussman@reddit

Nothing boils my blood more than waiting on hold for someone to answer, possibly for hours and the as soon as the call connects and you can hear rustling only for the call to disconnect.

Reply

[-]

creepinghippo@reddit

Precisely, I have had this numerous times. Many years ago I left the phone company Orange because I called their customer service for a weird issue and I said as soon as it was answered “Hello, I have a bit of a strange one” and I just heard a sigh and they hung up. I had been waiting 30 minutes already and they just didn’t want to get involved. I changed my number and left them straight away. Fuck that for a game of soldiers.

Reply

[-]

Thestolenone@reddit

My GP has started adding that option when you call them.

Reply

[-]

SnooDonuts6494@reddit (OP)

"Press 1 if you are having a heart attack. Press 2 if you've been stabbed. Press 3 if you've been involved in a fatal traffic collision. > Thank you for your response. Press 1 if you need help in are Welsh. Press 2 if your keypad is not working. Or scream "HELP" after the tone.

Reply

[-]

RealLongwayround@reddit

In fairness, none of those would be appropriate times to call your GP! I know this may seem obvious but, as someone who answers 999 and 101 calls, I know there are three types of people: Group 1: this thing is important to me so I shall declare it an emergency. My friend, the fact that you have only just noticed that your car was lawfully seized six weeks ago does not make this an emergency. Group 2: I don’t want to pester, and I know there are more important problems in the world, but I’m calling on 101 because my next door neighbours were just having a very loud argument but it finished just now shortly after I heard a blood-curdling scream. I want to report a noise nuisance. Group 3: (the smallest group) I understand that 999 is for use when there is imminent or immediate risk of serious harm or a crime is in progress or has happened in the last few minutes.

Reply

[-]

velos85@reddit

It’s to get rid of the shit. If you have a genuine problem you will hold. If you just want to ask what your new payment is, you won’t.

Reply

[-]

Belle_TainSummer@reddit

Press 1 to never be called back, or maybe called at 2am, three weeks from now, or stay on the line and get to scream at someone for sure today.

Reply

[-]

Apidium@reddit

I don't know but I'm getting sick of customer service just utterly misunderstanding me. I suspect sometimes they just do not know the answer. I wish they would just tell me that then. A lot of the time they insist on answering some other question I'm not asking! Then when I try to clarify my question has nothing to do with that I just get the same non-answer.

Reply

[-]

cooky561@reddit

Why would they want to pay for the calls, when you can wait on hold, or ideally, get put off and not talk to them at all?

Reply

[-]

QuickTemperature7014@reddit

Companies would like to push you into solving whatever problem you’re having yourself as it’s cheaper for them. Increasingly it’s very difficult to find a customer support phone number at all.

Reply

[-]

RagerRambo@reddit

"we're experiencing higher call volumes than usual..." Fk off!

Reply

[-]

AutoModerator@reddit

**Please help keep AskUK welcoming!** - When replying to submission/post please **make genuine efforts to answer the question given**. Please no jokes, judgements, etc. - **Don't be a dick** to each other. If getting heated, just block and move on. - This is a strictly **no-politics** subreddit! Please help us by reporting comments that break these rules. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/AskUK) if you have any questions or concerns.*

Reply

Reply to Post

62 Comments