Why are you asked to leave a messgae and then no one rings you back?

N

NOAH

Registered User
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I think we should have a campaign to outlaw answering machines because to me it appears as if people are just making an excuse to not asnwer the phone, ie do no work. On 3 occasions this week I rang and got " please leave a message/number etc" but not one rang me back. I can recall from another time and place where a blanket ban was placed on the use of answering machines, it was a big organisation, erm it was in the 80's in a land not so far away. The result was "astounding" productivity increased, morale increased as the slackers were found out and best of all Customer Service shot through the roof. I only wish we could have the same here.

rant over

can i name the outfits that infuriated me?


noah
 
I hear you, One company annoyed me so much doing this, that i changed to one of their competitors, so far so good!
 
The civil service has done this to me a lot. Some departments request you to leave a voice message yet never answer within any length of time and you are basically left with having to go there in person.
 
I have to say I found out there was 90 messages on my phone as the light telling me there was a message wasn't working.

Took me a long time to ring everyone back
 
I uswd to work in customer services and we had an answring machine if people preferred not to hold. However, there weren't even enough of us to answer the phone never mind get around to the answering machine It was terrible so I would be all for banning the things.

On the other hand where I work now has no answering machine and people always complain that they can't leave a message when we are closed (this is deliberate as it is personal insurance and we would have people leaving messages that they were changing cars etc and we cannot ensure cover if we don't do it ourselves). You can't win sometimes!
 
the usual reason for being asked to leave a message is that a company does not have enough phone agents to deal with the volume of calls coming in and wait times are high. If this is the case they are unlikely to have people available to call people back. Those who stay on the line in a queue will be given priority.
 
And it the company is using 1890 or 0818 numbers they are raking it in by having people hold for long periods.
 
I rang the NCT centre today to find out why they were incorrectly billing me for a 'no show'. After explaining the situation to the first lady, she told me to hold on while she put me through to the customer service centre to get the 'no show' removed. I was then on hold for a good 3-5 minutes with regular 'please hold - your call is important blah blah blah' when a prerecorded voice came on saying ' You are through to the NCT customer service centre. We have had to evacuate the building due to an emergency. Please try again later'. I didn't know whether to laugh or cry! Did someone really hold off evacuating for a few minutes while recording the message? Or do call centres have a prerecorded message on standby ready to switch on for such situations?
 
stir crazy said:
The civil service has done this to me a lot. Some departments request you to leave a voice message yet never answer within any length of time and you are basically left with having to go there in person.
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You're lucky you got an answering machine!

My office has a phone system that has no answering machine, no "please hold-line busy" message and, to cap it all, if you are on a call and another call comes in, the caller hears a ring tone instead of an engaged tone thus thinking you are not bothering to answer the phone! This is an officwe that recieves circa 1000 calls a week, 50% show up as abandoned!
 
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Thanks for all replies and is it not a pity that people from the companies do not have a look on here and see where they are going wrong. The bit I cant fathom is the fact that the people who are been so rude by not returning calls must have the same thing happen to themselves so one would think they might show a bit more consideration. The attitude appears to be " I am going to do as little work as possible and if that means fobbing off/frustrating customers then so be it ie tough!" What a horrible approach to have in this day and age. This country would be a bit more bearable if people who deal with customers on a daily basis realised that without customers they would not have a job and at least make an efffort to treat them with respect and courtesy.

noah
 
NOAH said:
The attitude appears to be " I am going to do as little work as possible and if that means fobbing off/frustrating customers then so be it ie tough!"
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On the other hand, it could be: "I'm too busy to return calls"
 
The only thing I like about Eircom and BT is their queuebot system which promises to queue your call and call you back if you input a code then hang up.
 
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