Very long wait times for Customer Services

[longwaitEE]

Customer Services wait time far too long.

August 1st 2022. After 1 hour and 39 minutes with no reply from Customer Services, I hung up.

Same day started on-line chat at 20.24, waited over an hour before a human answered and then communicated until 22.10 before being told this help service could not deal with an insurance claim.

ISSUE 1 – is it normal to hear “high call volumes” whenever calling Customer Services at any time of the day and on any day of the week. Under-resourcing of HELP !

ISSUE 2 – why doesn’t the chat help say on the website we cannot help with the following times, Eg An insurance claim.

QUESTION Is this the normal experience for EE customers?

[archercj]

They are all as bad - broadband providers, mobiles, gas/electricity. You name it.

Top of the worse list for me are Virgin. It took 14 hours of my precious time (Whatsapp, chats, telephone calls) to resolve an issue they 100% created. Rang them to query my renewal as it was slightly different to my exisitng contract. Despite assurances everything was the same it took them 5 minuts to remove one of my two desk top boxes, halve my broadband speed and come up with a figure £30 more than written down in the renewal contract. It was so bad I had to have an engineer out to replace the excommunicated set top box as they couldnt do it remotely.

But other suppliers arent any better. I recently asked a 'simple' question on the TP-Link regaridng the 5G router and bands available with the external antenna. Got a response pretty quickly saying they were esclating it and I am still waiting.

As I get older this sort of thing winds me up even more. We all pay good money for these products and services and every year get faces with cost of living plus xx% rises yet we are faced with the most appalling customer service.

And if you think about it many create forums like this so that other customers do their dirty work. Crafty

[MoAtif]

Seems like this has always been an issue. A year later and im on my 5th attempt of calling this week. Actually waiting to be answered whilst typing this. I can even provide proof and evidence of these calls.

[archercj]

It's the way of the world. Companies like this employ recent graduates and the like who will bite their hand off to get a job reference on their CV's. They are then given scripted responses. And if you think about it 'community' sites like this are gold dust to a company. Why employ loads of experienced techies when you can set a site up and hope the general public will resolve the issue.

It's not the people who man the likes of these sites thats to blame, its the profit hungry companies who basically couldnt give a s**t about customer service. Pay good money for a service and/or equipment and thats money in the bank. 

A very sad state of affairs.

[Abaz84]

Over 2 hours and counting just waiting for someone to answer the phone!!! 

[Chris_B]

@Bry70   EE have been brought out so many times.    What ?          Orange and T-mobile merged to form EE in 2010.    BT acquired EE in 2015 it’s not been brought out since    

[Chris_B]

@Abaz84   Well why don’t you tell all the other customers who want to speak with customer services to put the phone down so you can speak with them first.      It’s iPhone preorder weekend so customers services take a hammering.  

[Abaz84]

Go back to sleep. Totally missing the fact this issue has clearly being going on for over a year, as per the original post. Also, EE are a huge company and you would think tech support and sales were separate!!

[bristolian]

EE are unique in having all CS calls answered in the UK - not something (m) any other providers offer, but this does have some consequences.

I dare say if that policy was abandoned, offshore call centres could be scaled up a lot quicker.

[archercj]

NONE in my experience surpass Virgin in terms of appalling Customer Service. Their Tier 1 support (either by phone or Whatsapp) is abroad and these poor souls have no authority to do anything except read scripts. Normal wait times can be up to 6 hours via WhatsApp. Escalation to Tier 2 is once again offshore with once again limite dauthority if you have issues with billing, contract etc. After a recent contract **bleep** up on their part I totted up over 24 hours in total of call's WhatsApp messaging and finally an engineer coming out.

Then its roll of the dice land as Tier 3 is UK. But probably 50% of the time you get someone who genuine wants to help you and the othe 50% you get false promises (akin to being lied to). My big issue with Virgin is that they are the only true fibre supplier available to me and I do need a fast connection given the nature of my job. If not I would have gone years ago.

But most of these firms CS skills are appalling. No more the customer is king. It's take it or leave it now be it energy suppliers, insurance etc etc.

What a sad world we live in.

[sickofpasscodes]

2024 and chat is giving 2 hour waiting and phone is offering 1 hour on the phone except im roaming and calls cut out at one hour