Was just on hold with one of the big banks for 49 minutes. They had some pretty good hold music but thought the hold time was a little ridiculous. Just wondering what's your longest/best/worst hold experience with customer service?
Longest hold time experience
amkamz on 07/10/2021 - 17:27
Comments
Yeah, knocked it on the head for me. Mine is 1. Qantas and then 2. Centrelink
Though the music of Centrelink is so ear split-tingly painful, it did feel longer.
That's it? 49 is unreasonable but definitely not outrageous. I spend ~40 mins with SCA the other day. I spend almost 3 hours with someone last year, I think it was a bank but can't remember, I've repressed this experience.
Hospital outpatients line.. over an hour easy
Best for me is aami, gets straight through every time to claim or haggle
Just a heads-up on the "haggle"comment. They (AAMI) have made that a lot harder to do. If you "haggled" in the last 2 years you are not going to get a "painless" discount this time around. Seems their "higher-ups" got tired of all the folks that have been trained to ask for a random discount and put some sort of "filter" in place to untrain that. You might still get a discount but you'd need to be a long-term customer with several policies in place. The one year / one policy price hoppers are going to be out of luck, keep on hopping and never build a relationship with a supplier.
This. I hear people say “it’s bullshit my price has gone up.”
Insurance is primarily based on risk profile, from that company. A policy price is sent out at the estimated cost to the company potentially, calculated at the best option. Not a “we’ll start with this and let them haggle.”
Still, if you’re not happy with the price, talk to your company about your loyalty to the brand, look at your options with the policy and when you compare to other companies, DO NOT JUST LOOK ON PRICE. Please don’t. My car insurance is about to renew and I found many companies cheaper, but when I look more closely:
-Higher excess than I currently have.
-Gives only market value, not a slightly higher agreed value.
-Different policy says “if I drive more KM’s, I get charged $1000 extra” or “any driver not listed has additional $600 excess.”You know what I am trying to say here. Don’t let them take you for a ride, but push yourself into a locked in corner.
I waited just under 2hrs on hold, while I waited to hear how my mom went after surgery.
That is dreadful.
I spent around 6 hours on hold with Qantas a couple of months ago when the NSW border closed at midnight and I was due to fly back from NZ via Syd a few hours later, I ended up giving up and tried again the next day and got through after about 2 hours on hold ….
To make it worse the operator I spoke to had a very strong accent and he was totally useless, they were only offering alternate return flights that were longer than 24 hours, like Christchurch to Auckland to Bris to Perth to Hobart, with a couple of 8 hour stopovers along the way… I ended up finding my own flights while on the phone, Christchurch to Melb, to Hobart with Jetstar and gave them the flight numbers to get my flights changed… (the Vic border re-opened the following night at midnight, I dont think he was aware of that and his system didn't seem to be showing flights to Melbourne)
I always thought Qantas would be better than this… All expected with border closures and flight cancellations I guess…
49mins only?
Coles at one point (at start of lockdown), said estimated wait time 2h30m, I hung up and SMS their support team instead.
Spent 2 hours 14 minutes last year on hold contacting Centrelink during the initial lockdown last year in April/May when I was put on company stand down.
Longest hold time for me would have been Centrelink; I spent about 3.5 hours on hold (plus another 30 minutes talking to multiple people), all because there was no way for me to update my residential status through my online account! This was back in the day where if you called Centrelink, there was a high chance that all the lines were busy and your call would be automatically disconnected.
The worst hold experience would be that experience with Centrelink, but the second-worst would be Woolworths Supermarkets customer support; their hold music was awfully repetitive and annoying, because it was just the Woolworths jingle from their ads around a year ago, and it played on repeat every 30 seconds…
Longest hold time: arrivals gate at Doha to the toilets, other side of security.
Even better when they finally answer than "accidentally" hang up
40 mins?? Pfft, thats nothing.. 2-3 hours easy. I've been on hold for that long many times, I've forgotten who I'd called.
And then "Let me check that for you - give me 10 minutes" - yeah, I know, you're juggling another call. Overall it's less efficient but probably filters out the impatient ones.
2 hours 20 mins with Centrelink a few years ago, the person who finally picked up was really helpful, until they tried to transfer me to someone else and I got disconnected…so got another nearly 2 hours on hold. I used to just put it on speakerphone and would just watch a movie whenever I had to call them, luckily I only ever had to do it a couple times.
Chinese airlines, 10 hours
Three days. Didn’t have access to a proper dunny.
What is so important that you have to hold on the phone for 3 days?
I know you are being funny but when I’m travelling and I see a squat loo I think, “how badly do I, really, need to go?” For some reason public loos in the back blocks of France can, often, be squat loos.
The worst hold experience would be that experience with Centrelink (~2hours), however i felt that the person who served me was easy to deal with and felt that the call expereince wasn't rushed and explained things properly.
recently since lockdown : target over a hour for missing order ( after 3 attempts). the lady on the other end was rude and asked why i didn't call earlier after the order wasn't delivered. i told her i got sick of waiting over 40min on hold
medibank 30mins: it funny on weekends there's no phone support for issues, but the new customer phone line was open for buniess as usual.
I waited 6 hours to get a cash refund from Qantas. My wife unwisely took credit and I was wtf no and got back on the phone. 3 months later had the cash.
Sounds like a deliberate attempt to fob you off. Lose vs win
In 2013 we were due to fly out the next day to Japan, we had left our dogs with some minders to look after them for a few weeks (having used these people before). We get a call that one of the dogs got out of their front door and into bushland at about 9pm (flying out at 8am).
Spent a few hours walking through the bush, with no shoes, as when they called I got in the car and left without thinking that far ahead to go to look for him. We got home at 1am and my wife spent 5 hours on the phone to Qantas and was able to reschedule the flights by 4 days. Lucky we managed to get our dog back on day 4 right before flying out agsin after paying the reward (ransom).
Not all the 5 hours was on hold, but finding somebody to help us at 1am Perth time on the Qantas help line was a challenge.
Reward or ransom?
Reward…but in hindsight was probably a ransom.
Dog appeared at the vet with contact details for the person to collect reward…want us to drop money in a random local in an envelope so we couldn't see who collected it. We were shattered and didn't really think about the oddness of it all until post-holiday but finally managed to meet briefly in person to give it to them but in hindsight, I think this person picked him up and waited for a reward to be posted due to the breed (Mini Dachshund).
It is a horrible feeling when your pet gets out. We have a couple of Somali kitties and they are absolutely gorgeous. One of them was particularly good at escaping from our front porch so now it looks like Colditz. My biggest fear was someone would decide to keep her if they found her.
Glad you your dog back.
A few weeks ago, the wife spent a little over 2 hours on hold with a government department. Just left her phone on speaker and went about life until it answered.
Was it Westpac - I know that song to well..
49 mins is not bad, I wouldn't mind that since I usually put them on speakerphone whilst continuing my work.
The worst I had was with Qantas during the first instance of COVID back at the start of 2020. They had screwed up my flight plans and I was due to fly the following day.
Tried contacting on every possible media — Twitter, Facebook, email, and finally after a 5-hour wait on the phone, I got connected, talked to the agent for about 10 minutes, and the call cut. Had to start all the way from the start again.
3 hours and 30 minutes on hold with Qantas
Don't get my started. Some of them are amazing agents, some are a complete joke
6 hours with Microsoft chat, the guy I was speaking to left the call and never came back
Asking @iNeed2Pee what was his longest hold time? /s
Depends on the context 🤣
My longest would be spending just over 4 hours calling the Victorian Covid Contact Tracers…
The really sad part is that 93% of Victorian COVID-19 cases in the last seven days weren't fully vaccinated.
What is wrong with some people? With Pfizer they can be, fully, vaccinated in three weeks. I’m fully done so this statistic gives me hope we can get this back down again. It would help if people got vaccinated and stopped running around infecting each other.
Try being on hold for 30 minutes in a queue to the Department of Transport, after having been forced to listen to numerous messages they deemed important (they weren’t), only to finally be answered by a public servant and the call dropping out!
I spent over an hour on hold to CBA to report a fraud on my credit card that had just occurred (anxiety was through the roof) and next call was to ANZ and their fraud section answered in 2 mins.
Years ago I was on hold to Telstra on a Friday afternoon for over 2 hours and when I finally was answered it was a recorded message to say they were now closed (after 5pm).work colleague was on call with Emirates last year for over 7 hours
Can anyone imagine what it must be like working in those call centres? Almost everyone you encounter must be angry.
Macquarie bank has the option to leave a message and they will call you back. Much better idea.
However, I think the best option would be for people to submit an email, detailing their issue and including a phone number, so the people in the call centre could get a heads up on your issue, do a little bit of background, then ring you back to sort out your problem. It, also, provides a written record of when you raised an issue.
I spent over an hour on hold to CBA to report a fraud on my credit card that had just occurred (anxiety was through the roof) and next call was to ANZ and their fraud section answered in 2 mins.
Years ago I was on hold to Telstra on a Friday afternoon for over 2 hours and when I finally was answered it was a recorded message to say they were now closed (after 5pm).
Aunt Betty last year when my flights were cancelled due to Covid 😒
4h59m on hold to Centrelink back in about 2004. As soon as it hit 5h it hung up and I needed to start again. It was 3h45m second time, so 8h45m total.
6 hours to Expedia in March 2020 when our borders closed
Expedia is the worst I have ever dealt with, by far.
To the point I will never purchase anything through their company again.Yup, they were absolutely painful to deal with and will also never use them again.
Booked a flight and accommodation package that was supposed to be non-refundable but as the flights were through Singapore Airlines who ended up refunded everyone, I received a random refund for the flights on my credit card from Expedia with no notice. My insurer needed proof of partial refund and it took 3 months of pissing around with Expedia to just get an email sent to me. The clowns could just not comprehend that all I needed was an amended receipt or email and instead kept giving me instructions on how to download my original itinerary.
I knew it was going to be shit so I did multiple screen snaps with my booking. When it all turned to shit and they lied, I said I will send them the screen snaps….but you cant!. The paperclip icon beside the chat box doesn't work, and then they cannot give you an email to send them to! Just awful people, who in the middle of a back and forth conversation that takes hours because they are doing 20 calls at the same time, they fob you off to someone new so you have to start all over again. I'm getting angry again just typing this.
I bet either Centrelink or one of the airlines (during COVID) would hold the record in Aus