Higher than expected call volumes...

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tchart

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#309197 28-Sep-2023 09:32

Does anyone else find it laughable that many places are still playing the "Higher than expected call volumes" message when you call customer support?

Surely after all these months (years?) its no longer unexpected and they should put on more staff?

Looking at you 2 degrees...

Rant over :D

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#3135740 28-Sep-2023 09:48

No business will ever put on more staff to the point where they are no longer experiencing "higher than expected call volumes". That would just be burning cash unnecessarily having idle capacity sitting around not being utilised.

Paul1977

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#3135744 28-Sep-2023 09:56

Senecio:

No business will ever put on more staff to the point where they are no longer experiencing "higher than expected call volumes". That would just be burning cash unnecessarily having idle capacity sitting around not being utilised.

But it's untrue to say the call volumes are "higher than expected", at least get rid of the blatantly dishonest message. Also, you could increase staffing to levels to the point where calls are answered faster but still not have people sitting idly around. Maybe a 10 minute wait on hold instead of 30 minutes.

Rikkitic

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#3135747 28-Sep-2023 09:58

Senecio:

No business will ever put on more staff to the point where they are no longer experiencing "higher than expected call volumes". That would just be burning cash unnecessarily having idle capacity sitting around not being utilised.

Maybe they abandon their dinosaur thinking, rediscover the value of customer goodwill, train their workforce to be flexible and step into other roles depending on the need of the moment?

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freitasm

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#3135749 28-Sep-2023 10:01

Rikkitic:

Senecio:

No business will ever put on more staff to the point where they are no longer experiencing "higher than expected call volumes". That would just be burning cash unnecessarily having idle capacity sitting around not being utilised.

Maybe they abandon their dinosaur thinking, rediscover the value of customer goodwill, train their workforce to be flexible and step into other roles depending on the need of the moment?

But that requires more people, training, and actual thinking beings instead of script-followers. You know this all costs money.

And they can't have money going out.

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frankv

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#3135821 28-Sep-2023 11:17

Paul1977:

Senecio:

No business will ever put on more staff to the point where they are no longer experiencing "higher than expected call volumes". That would just be burning cash unnecessarily having idle capacity sitting around not being utilised.

But it's untrue to say the call volumes are "higher than expected", at least get rid of the blatantly dishonest message. Also, you could increase staffing to levels to the point where calls are answered faster but still not have people sitting idly around. Maybe a 10 minute wait on hold instead of 30 minutes.

There's a very well-known branch of operations research called queueing theory which tells you stats about a queueing system with some number of servers, an expected rate of random arrivals, and some distribution of service times. You can then also calculate how long the queue will get, the average wait time, and the idle time for servers, and a bunch of other stuff. Or, you can give a desired average queueing time and calculate how many servers you need to achieve that. However, the only way to completely avoid long queues is to have an infinite number of servers, and the only way to completely avoid idle servers is to have zero servers.

I'd be flabbergasted if call centre operators weren't 100% aware of this and applying it. I'd also be surprised if they didn't have a very good idea of their arrival rate and service times, so they could very accurately forecast their queueing time (except when there was higher than normal load). So it's 100% obvious that "higher than expected" is pure BS, and that they've intentionally chosen high queueing times to minimise server idle time.

dahc

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#3135871 28-Sep-2023 11:38

tchart:

Does anyone else find it laughable that many places are still playing the "Higher than expected call volumes" message when you call customer support?

Surely after all these months (years?) its no longer unexpected and they should put on more staff?

Looking at you 2 degrees...

Rant over :D

Totally agree. Spent 50 mins in the queue last week only to be told that they'd need to put me through to another team but would have them call me. Still waiting for the call back one week later...

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Bluntj

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#3135873 28-Sep-2023 11:41

Rikkitic:

Senecio:

No business will ever put on more staff to the point where they are no longer experiencing "higher than expected call volumes". That would just be burning cash unnecessarily having idle capacity sitting around not being utilised.

Maybe they abandon their dinosaur thinking, rediscover the value of customer goodwill, train their workforce to be flexible and step into other roles depending on the need of the moment?

They probably pay them minimum wage and so have a very high churn rate. Same as valuing long term customers they dont value long term staff.

cddt

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#3135876 28-Sep-2023 11:49

ASB is shocking in this regard. Sit on the phone for an hour to get through to a real person, only to be told they can't help me and I have to go into a branch, go to the branch, queue up for an hour, only to be told they can't help me today and I have to make an appointment, the next available appointment is in two weeks. Oh and appointments are only available during restricted business hours, God forbid you are employed and can't take several hours off to complete what should be a minor administrative task.

Oh and they are closing many branches and reducing hours and reducing services available at those remaining...

I would change banks but it seems like it's a race to the bottom and none of them are offering notably better service.

frankv

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#3135879 28-Sep-2023 11:59

Rikkitic:

Senecio:

No business will ever put on more staff to the point where they are no longer experiencing "higher than expected call volumes". That would just be burning cash unnecessarily having idle capacity sitting around not being utilised.

Maybe they abandon their dinosaur thinking, rediscover the value of customer goodwill, train their workforce to be flexible and step into other roles depending on the need of the moment?

I agree on the first 2, but the retraining staff as call centre operators isn't going to work well. Firstly, a call centre demands different skills and knowledge than a (say) IT technician or salesperson or whatever. Secondly, it assumes that your other staff have nothing better to do than answer calls in times of "higher than expected load". Thirdly, if your tier 2 support people are busy handling tier 1 calls, they aren't available to solve tier 2 problems. Fourthly, adding people to a problem typically doesn't speed up resolution of that problem.

e.g. At the beginning of covid lockdown, when staff were moving out of the office and setting up at home, the IT manager called all hands to the pump on the support line. As a qualified and skilled IT (not call centre) person who could and did set up his own PC and network and so on, I jumped in. The first call I answered related to a particular piece of business software that I wasn't familiar with, I didn't have any idea of an escalation process, so I had to put the caller back in the queue. The second and third calls related to authentication keys that I didn't have access to, so same outcome. I didn't bother taking any more calls. I did develop a lot of respect for the service desk people though.

allan

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#3135885 28-Sep-2023 12:17

It's everywhere unfortunately. The idea of actual customer "service" has completely gone out the window. Tried dealing with an insurance company for a claim recently?

Same deal. No branches
Log claim online, get emailed acknowledgement and wait and wait and wait
Call them and go into queue with no idea how long you will wait
Give up and email generic address that they acknowledged your initial claim from. A week later still no reply
Call into local panel beater to at least get some idea of repairability. Sorry, you can no longer just drop in. You need to book an appointment through your insurance company!

Many, many moons ago I worked for an insurance company and you could eyeball your claims handler face to face and they handled pretty much all aspects of your claim. Consolidation to faceless call centres does not improve either customer service or satisfaction.

Rikkitic

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#3135888 28-Sep-2023 12:21

frankv:

I agree on the first 2, but the retraining staff as call centre operators isn't going to work well. Firstly, a call centre demands different skills and knowledge than a (say) IT technician or salesperson or whatever. Secondly, it assumes that your other staff have nothing better to do than answer calls in times of "higher than expected load". Thirdly, if your tier 2 support people are busy handling tier 1 calls, they aren't available to solve tier 2 problems. Fourthly, adding people to a problem typically doesn't speed up resolution of that problem.

e.g. At the beginning of covid lockdown, when staff were moving out of the office and setting up at home, the IT manager called all hands to the pump on the support line. As a qualified and skilled IT (not call centre) person who could and did set up his own PC and network and so on, I jumped in. The first call I answered related to a particular piece of business software that I wasn't familiar with, I didn't have any idea of an escalation process, so I had to put the caller back in the queue. The second and third calls related to authentication keys that I didn't have access to, so same outcome. I didn't bother taking any more calls. I did develop a lot of respect for the service desk people though.

I respectfully submit that you may be missing the target a little. The example you cite does probably apply to more technical and specialised services, but many call centres field calls of a much more general nature. My counter-example would be a recent attempt to get through to Contact Energy regarding a dispute over having my meter read. I got the usual 'exceptionally busy' BS and was put on hold. After a half-hour or so I got fed up having my time wasted by a company that is taking my money and submitted an official complaint about them, which really shook things loose!

The point is that many, maybe most, calls initially just require a switchboard operator to plug the cable into the right jack. The customer experience is greatly enhanced by the ability to immediately be received by an actual human being. This is the goodwill part. It has to do with psychology, not efficiency.

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Johnk

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#3135896 28-Sep-2023 12:48

I have just had a perfect experience from 2Degrees.

Tuesday afternoon I phoned to open a new account, with four ports coming with me from spark. The whole call took less than 30mins inc the wait at the beginning.

Sims arrived yesterday, went into a store to do the port, took about three mins in store.

One Sim failed with the port process, I have literally got off the phone with 2Degrees support in the last 2 mins, whole call took 17mins, inc the wait to answer, provide all the details, the wait for her to find out what went wrong, then the wait while she does the port again.

All in all, from a new customer, I'm impressed with the customer support at 2Degrees personally.

BlargHonk

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#3135924 28-Sep-2023 13:26

I don't mind the long queues as long as they offer a call-back option. I would much rather you call me back 1hr later than have to sit on hold for that long!

Rikkitic

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#3135943 28-Sep-2023 14:07

BlargHonk:

I don't mind the long queues as long as they offer a call-back option. I would much rather you call me back 1hr later than have to sit on hold for that long!

In my experience call-backs are not honoured more often than they are. Apart from that, I am nearly always busy doing something. I don't just sit and wait for the call. When (if) it comes, it nearly always interrupts something else. That is not how I want to live.

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Andib

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#3135953 28-Sep-2023 14:43

Johnk:

I have just had a perfect experience from 2Degrees.

Tuesday afternoon I phoned to open a new account, with four ports coming with me from spark. The whole call took less than 30mins inc the wait at the beginning.

Sims arrived yesterday, went into a store to do the port, took about three mins in store.

One Sim failed with the port process, I have literally got off the phone with 2Degrees support in the last 2 mins, whole call took 17mins, inc the wait to answer, provide all the details, the wait for her to find out what went wrong, then the wait while she does the port again.

All in all, from a new customer, I'm impressed with the customer support at 2Degrees personally.

Signing up to be a new customer tends to always provides a better experience than existing customers as companies know if they don't, they will likely loose out on a sale.

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