Monday, March 19, 2007
Is three days in a row, higher than normal, or unresponsive
For three days now (Saturday March 17 through Monday March 19), I have been trying to get through to Rogers Wireless technical support. For each of the six times I have called, I have navigated their voice automated phone system and consistently end up at a message that they are “currently experiencing higher than normal call volumes” and that “wait times will be in excess of fifteen minutes”.
Is three consecutive days of this really higher than normal call volumes? Or are we witnessing the tell-tale signs of an inattentive and unresponsive call centre?
March 19th, 2007 at 11:29 am
When “higher than normal” becomes normal, then it’s time to hire more people at the call center to deal with the higher demand. It’s not like they can’t afford it, with the prices they charge (specially here). What annoys me the most is that all the companies are the same; sort of an undercover monopoly.
I bet that if you try calling the sales department you will get someone instantly. It worked for me once.
March 19th, 2007 at 11:21 pm
it’s a matter of expectation. if they say “normal call volume” and you wait 15 minutes, it makes them look bad. if they say “higher than normal” and you wait 15 minutes, you expect that they normally have their call volume under control.
March 20th, 2007 at 12:28 am
I appreciate setting the expectation. However, after four days of “higher than normal call volumes” with “wait times that exceed fifteen minutes” at various times of day including mid-morning, mid-afternoon, evening and midnight, you’d think they’d have made some changes to accomodate their call volumes.
At what point does “higher than normal” and “your call is important to us” become “we couldn’t be bothered delivering even basic customer service”?
I’m inclined to send Ted Rogers a copy of Laura Penny’s book Your Call is Important To Us.
March 24th, 2007 at 11:24 am
Mark,
I believe you’ve hit the nail on the head:
‘At what point does “higher than normal” and “your call is important to us” become “we couldn’t be bothered delivering even basic customer service”?’
I haven’t, fortunately, had any recent experience with Rogers (through a combination of circumstance — being posted overseas on a job assignment for several years — and personal choice — philosophical/moral differences with the way the company is run) but I have seen the same thing in dealing with Bell Canada (another Evil Empire).
And as Nico notes, they are only too happy to try to sell you something, as long as they don’t actually have to spend anything to provide acceptable performance once they have you locked into paying for the product/service. Why do that when you have more important people to take care of, like the shareholders and the C-level officers… every dollar spent on actually providing good service, whether in product performance or in post-sales services like connecting you within a reasonable period (something less than a lifetime would be a good start) to a real live person who cares whether you’re satisfied or not, is a dollar that they can’t pay out in dividends or stock options.
OK so I’m a cranky, demanding customer. But having lived this from the other side, as a manager of a customer service group in industrial sales, I know from cranky, demanding customers… and they are ultimately the ones that pay the bills and keep the company in business, so I have always believed that taking care of the customer is Job 1. Profits flow from that, from which the shareholders and everyone else in the company’s food chain benefits.
So, what you’re seeing really *is* “normal” and they’re just putting a spin on it. Unfortunately, with the limited choices in the marketplace, your option is often “do without” whatever product/service is involved as they have no incentive (i.e. competition) to change.
Sorry for being so long winded, but this is a topic that really turns my crank (so to speak…)
Rob
April 5th, 2007 at 9:14 pm
[...] called Rogers Wireless support for two separate issues. The first began on March 17th and I blogged about higher than normal call volumes (15 minutes or more). What a coincidence that I’ve managed to catch them during higher than [...]
November 4th, 2007 at 10:29 am
[...] was time to call Rogers Wireless for some help and just like it was seven and eight months ago (see here and here) Rogers is experiencing higher than normal call volumes. This time the wait times are [...]