RogerS
Established Member
Over the last few years we have spent huge amounts of time effectively doing or correcting work that should have been done by the various companies themselves.
Currently ongoing struggles with BT and Scottish Widows and Lloyds Bank. But why is this? I think that it is caused by four reasons.
1) Call centre staff are rewarded by minimising metrics such as hold time. So they get you off the phone as quickly as they can but then don't update their systems to reflect what's just been discussed or amended.
2) Not enough staff in call-centres as that implies costs
3) Use of offshore call-centres. Don't get me wrong - I like India, the country, the culture and the people. But..it is in their culture not to say no. They want to help. Whether or not what they say they will do actually gets done or can even be done often goes by the wayside. So I have to confess that now if I do get through to a call-centre and it is located offshore then I politely put the phone down and try again when I stand a better chance of a UK-located call centre
4) But the main reason I think is due to the ever-increasing complexity of the products and range of products be it from financial services, mobile phone operators or telco's such as BT. The range is just so huge that no callcentre operator can expect to know everything that is available, whether or not THIS works with THAT ..you get my drift?
So you get wrong advice or the wrong actions get taken..with or without your knowledge until three months downline you discover the error and so you're back on the telephone trying to sort their errors out again ..and again..and again.
I would vote for anyone that brought in a way of charging these organisations for my time spent in sorting out their errors.
Simple is good.
Currently ongoing struggles with BT and Scottish Widows and Lloyds Bank. But why is this? I think that it is caused by four reasons.
1) Call centre staff are rewarded by minimising metrics such as hold time. So they get you off the phone as quickly as they can but then don't update their systems to reflect what's just been discussed or amended.
2) Not enough staff in call-centres as that implies costs
3) Use of offshore call-centres. Don't get me wrong - I like India, the country, the culture and the people. But..it is in their culture not to say no. They want to help. Whether or not what they say they will do actually gets done or can even be done often goes by the wayside. So I have to confess that now if I do get through to a call-centre and it is located offshore then I politely put the phone down and try again when I stand a better chance of a UK-located call centre
4) But the main reason I think is due to the ever-increasing complexity of the products and range of products be it from financial services, mobile phone operators or telco's such as BT. The range is just so huge that no callcentre operator can expect to know everything that is available, whether or not THIS works with THAT ..you get my drift?
So you get wrong advice or the wrong actions get taken..with or without your knowledge until three months downline you discover the error and so you're back on the telephone trying to sort their errors out again ..and again..and again.
I would vote for anyone that brought in a way of charging these organisations for my time spent in sorting out their errors.
Simple is good.