Your call is very important ...

[badger]

Doesn't it drive you crazy? Nearly every large organisation/company you phone these days greets you with a recorded message - we are receiving an unusually high volume of calls, apologies for delay, your call is very important, you could try our website which is www etc. If the answer was on the website I wouldn't be phoning or maybe I'm one of those terrible people that doesn't have a computer (there are some).

It's no wonder there is so much unemployment, no-one employs enough staff any more. I wanted to ask HSE something today but they only have fax numbers for their offices! I didn't know people still used faxes. Finally found a tel.no., held on for ages through all the recorded messages, muzak, more messages, leave your number and we'll call you back in 5 working days. Eventually someone answers, says he'll transfer me and cuts me off [evil] . Give up, which is probably what they want.

My call is not in the least bit important, at least not to them, only to me. Which doesn't matter.

[Rheghead]

Yep, I hear you badger and I fully sympathise.

[pmcd]

I feel very sorry for people in call centres until I realise how awful the crime must have been which they committed in a previous life. My three current bugbears are:-

a) The long silence. Followed by an almost curt "Hello". I remain silent. Until they hang up. Sauce for the goose.....

b) They phone my mobile. On the screen I see "Private Number". Wait for the guy to start his spiel. Interrupt. "Excuse me, do you realise your call has generated a slogan on my phone which says 'private number'? No? Well, here's news for you - I don't deal with firms I can't get back to in my time on my terms. This is a private number, too". They've usually hung up by then. Sauce for the goose.....

c) They phone me up in the middle of a meal. I tell them they've phoned me during a meal. I tell them what the meal consists of. I tell them how lovely it looks on the plate. I also tell them I am hungry. I do not let them speak. Eventually they go away. Bread sauce for the chicken.......

I would rather scrape rat droppings from sewer pipes with my fingernails for a living than work in a call centre for a pig-ignorant firm which treats its customers AND its staff as cattle.

Yes, I KNOW you have to do it, there's no other work, and ALL work is honourable. So rise up, all of you. Turn on your bosses, and demand they look at the most successful and most-loved call centre in the UK - First Direct, where the staff are encouraged to chat to customers as human beings, and are not told to "pressure sell". First Direct (according to "Which" magazine (and me, too!) is the most popular of all banks, and is liked and trusted by its clientele. Simply by treating them as grown-ups.

That's right, folks. A bank which is liked and trusted. Now THAT might have been a clever road to travel , Mr Goodwin, wouldn't it?

[joxville]

I can tell you one worse than that badger. I have to phone our order office several times per day on internal number and I get the 'your call is important and all our lines are busy' messages. On a bloody internal line! I've complained about it but 5 years later nothing has changed.

[badger]

I can tell you one worse than that badger. I have to phone our order office several times per day on internal number and I get the 'your call is important and all our lines are busy' messages. On a bloody internal line! I've complained about it but 5 years later nothing has changed.

That's ridiculous ! Times I've wished the CEOs of big companies would try using their own systems. But of course they never do.