We will be with you shortly

Long waits on the phone at my GP practice. Annoying music and repeated messages including "one of our representatives will be with you soon". Just not good enough and so sad to see how the much respected GP service has deteriorated. It's systemic and common to very many GP practices now.

My SIL needed to speak to someone at the inland revenue. After holding for nearly an hour the lady answering told him he’d have to ring back as she had a delivery man at the door!

Try ringing DVLA, I'm waiting for a medical restricted licence renewal, if you ring at 8am when they open all you get is a recorded message stating all their operators are busy, no facility to hold It is the same all through the day.

Webchat is no better & it takes weeks/months to get an answer to a letter

I hate it when I am told ‘thank you for your patience’ when I am anything but patient after hanging on for over half an hour.

Yes, I do wonder when I'm ALWAYS told there's an 'unprecedented delay' in answering my call - surely a contradiction in terms. When you point this out to a call handler they seem confused ?

@antonia we must use the same surgery. It’s dire at the moment. Especially if you have more than one condition. One appointment per condition. How about if you aren’t sure which condition your new symptoms affects? How about if all your conditions need reviewing? “Can I have five appointments all together please?” you can imagine the laughter from the receptionist!

At least some of them offer to call you back, no quicker but at least you don't miss your turn.
I sometimes manage to cut myself off on my mobile whilst I'm waiting.

My husband was told to contact his gp urgently on Mon morning. He started ringing at 8.30 am and finally got through at 9.15 am. Its just not good enough. Once he got talking to the gp everything kicked in and treatment is happening.

Vintagejazz

Equally frustrating is when you have to spend ages listening to a recording, then are asked to press 1, 2 , 3 etc; then get another recorded message and are asked to press further buttons to narrow down the options, then another recorded message and so on and after going through the whole palaver you're either cut off or looped back to the original message

This is my pet hate

If our calls are so important to them , then why not employ more people to answer the phones???!!!

Dickens, I agree.

I liked a recent cartoon, with a frustrated man holding the receiver, listening to 'Your call is important to us; please hold until it ceases to be important to you'.

My youngest son has a credit card that he hasn’t used for nearly twelve months with zero balance on it. Last week he got a statement and found hundreds of pounds had been charged on his card for Amazon purchases. He doesn’t buy from them on principle.
When he rang the Fraud Line number for his credit card he was three and a half hours on hold before being connected to a human being.
Looking at reviews online many many others have similar experiences. I’m looking at you MBNA !!
My advice to everyone is make sure you have secondary verification on your cards. He didn’t have it on his card.

I spent almost 20 minutes this morning trying to ring the GP surgery.

Appointments can only be made by phone now. You can't call into reception to book, or book online.

So you first get at least 2 minutes of trying to persuade you to go to a pharmacy, or to their push doctor, or the other surgery miles away, or anywhere else that isn't the surgery.

After that, it's 'press 1 if you would like an appointment.'

So you press 1. Then you get, 'did you know that many minor ailments can be dealt with at your local pharmacy?'

Then you get, 'you are number x in the queue.'

Then you get, the most galling message of all, 'All our operators are currently busy, please hold the line.'

This is particularly irritating because you know full well there is only one person answering calls.

By the time I finally get to speak to an actual person, my patience is wearing very thin and I probably come across as belligerent.

Chocolatelovinggran

Yep, I've said it before: what the voice should say is "your call is important to us, but not important enough for us to employ sufficient people to answer the phone " ?

Companies can't employ sufficient people. They are in competition with each other. The only way they can compete is by minimising their costs. Human resources cost money.

Marx was right - "the anarchic competition between capitalists for greater profits – force each capitalist to try and reduce their costs, in order to sell at a lower price, by increasing productivity through the replacement of labour with machinery" ... or 'technology' as we call it now.

"Under capitalism, the individual capitalist introduces technology and improves productivity in order to increase their own individual profit, without any regard for the living standards of workers or the needs of society" (Adam Booth, Science and Technology)

That's it, that's how Capitalism works. And no, I'm not a Marxist.

Equally frustrating is when you have to spend ages listening to a recording, then are asked to press 1, 2 , 3 etc; then get another recorded message and are asked to press further buttons to narrow down the options, then another recorded message and so on and after going through the whole palaver you're either cut off or looped back to the original message

Teacheranne In the 1990s when I worked for British Gas, we ran mystery caller checks at least twice a year and woe-betide and district that kept callers waiting more than 2 minutes.

I recently had to phone British Gas to ask why my direct debit had doubled when I’m on a fixed tariff deal and according to me statement, my usage had gone down compared to last year. I was 162 in the queue so I gave up!

I tried again a few weeks later using the Chat feature on their website and the robot was able to sort out the problem and reduce the payment. It was blamed on a computer error which had predicted “ unprecedented use” for the next quarter!! Still don’t know what that means!

Chocolatelovinggran

Yep, I've said it before: what the voice should say is "your call is important to us, but not important enough for us to employ sufficient people to answer the phone " ?

I used to feel the same about checkout operators who were evidently instructed to say, ‘Thank you for waiting,’ instead of, ‘Sorry to keep you waiting.’

There must have been a lot of complaints, though, since it’s quite a while since I’ve heard it anywhere.

I agree.

Just having an idea how long 'shortly' is likely to be would help!

I like the recorded message system that tells you where you are in the queue...it means you can make an informed choice.

Yep, I've said it before: what the voice should say is "your call is important to us, but not important enough for us to employ sufficient people to answer the phone " ?

An hour and a half a few weeks ago, waiting to ask Barclays why a cc had been rejected for an online purchase.

On loudspeaker, with the most unutterably bloody awful music playing. When someone finally answered I asked whether it was on purpose, so that people who couldn’t stand it any longer would hang up and go away.

I used to get thoroughly fed up with the ubiquitous Four Seasons, but it would have been bliss by comparison.

Our surgery , with you are 35 in the queue , please hold ! I put it on loudspeaker so I don’t miss my turn
And the … did you know you can follow us on Facebook for important information ! But they are so busy it hasn’t been updated for weeks !