Acceptable to time to be on hold?

[Uther]

Depends on whether or not the call is free, any more than 5-10 minutes and im done.

Same. I would much rather have contact through live chat.

 

[Mark A]

I'd like to see a law change in the UK where if you have to wait on a premium custiomer support line for more than 5mins, then the company starts paying you instead of the other way round.

HazardO for next PM!

 

[Em3bbs]

Has there ever been a time when any organisation you telephone isn't telling you they are suffering from "unusually high call volumes"?

Seems to me if they are suffering it permanently, it's not unusual

I'd say I only get that message around 1 in 20 times or so, usually when I'm calling on a Monday morning or something.

 

[Roar87]

5-10 minutes. Where I work we don't let calls get over 5 minutes really

 

[wesimmo]

I work in resource planning and I can assure you that it's as frustrating for us and the call centre when you're waiting that long.

It invariably means something has gone horribly wrong or we weren't informed about something like a marketing campaign so the place goes mental while people in senior positions spend their time trying to dodge blame.

 

[Rroff]

NTL (ScumTL) were the worst back in the early 2000s. 45 minutes on hold and that was a sales line!! Dread to think what their tech support line would have been like. Things got a lot better though after they got taken over by Richard Branson.

IIRC their tech support line used to be handled through the Fujitsu Services centre which had fairly strict targets for max waiting time.

 

[moogle]

45 mins, on the phone to BT. My contract ends around the time of these Black Friday deals so I guess the lines are really busy but still..

 

[Yas786]

Today on the phone to currys customer services, 50mins before they answered the phone then another 30mins talking to them without any resolution to my issue.

So I shall be sending a strongly worded letter to their head office asking for them to reimburse the time I spent on the phone and to cancel my order with immediate effect.

This past week I have literally spent almost 3 hrs on the phone to the useless idiots, being passed from one person to another.

 

[weringo]

Don't really care because of free mins including 08 numbers. I usually just leave it in speaker while watching TV. After an hour I'd probably give up though

 

[itchy]

I suppose it depends on how important it is, the more urgent it is the longer I hold, if its something trivial I quit after 10min.

I quit after 2min if am paying for the call no matter what.

 

[This never ends well]

Depends who im trying to ring and if i need to go out later on.

 

[Angilion]

It's not only the amount of time on hold. It's also what messages the company plays during that time.

There are two things that a company should only have in its hold messages if it actually intends to put people off calling them:

1) A message along the lines of "your call is important to us". That's just an insulting lie. If their call was important, it would be answered. The fact that the caller is on hold proves that their call isn't important to the company.

2) Advertise the company. Advertising the company at someone who is being forced to hold before being allowed to speak to the company...surely nobody can think that's a good idea.

I would rather be on hold to a company that played farting noises at people on hold than either of those two.