Ofcom reported: UK Telecoms are getting worse for keeping customers on hold
“We’ve asked telecoms customers what frustrates them most with their providers, and the message is clear: they want to get through to the right person on the phone quickly, and have their complaints dealt with first time, with switching becoming simpler, providers that continue to let standards slip should expect customers to show them the door.”
said Ian Macrae, Ofcom’s Director of Market Intelligence
UK Telecoms operators are notorious for keeping us on hold, they are making it even harder for customers to get hold of them and keeping them on the phone for longer according to new research from Ofcom.
Results published in the annual customer service report by the regulator last week, have shown that people are still keen to speak with a person on the other end of the phone when needing to rectify a problem, but average call waiting times in both fixed and mobiles are on the rise. While some providers have improved their statistics from the previous study, although overall being post pandemic – we would expect this to be greater.
According to Ofcom 77% of mobile customer contacts and 90% of landline and fixed broadband contacts last year prefer to have a voice conversation with a representative
making it the most popular form of communication, in second we have Webchat, but with some distance at 17% and 6% respectively.
“In 2022, despite the impact of Covid-19 subsiding, mobile customers spent an average of 2min 23s in a queue, up from 2min 15s the previous year,” Ofcom said. “Broadband and landline customers waited 2min 37s on average, compared to 2min 16s in 2021.”
Whilst this may say a couple minutes, it is in fact worth noting this is an average call waiting time – and there are many people waiting a lot longer, some get through straight away and others slowly lose the will to live and hang up.
