While trying to eat lunch today my phone rang. I’m expecting important calls and have been playing phone tag so I couldn’t just let it go to voicemail.
I answered and got a recording: “This is Keystone First calling with information about your new health plan”.
That’s my new insurance company so I knew it was a legitimate call, and with all of my health problems and medical bills a call from them makes me nervous.
Then I heard “press 1 to speak with an agent”. I did so and heard “please hold” and was then subjected to 5 minutes of muzak before someone finally came on the line. They were calling to do a 10 minute demographic survey which I could opt out of if I wished to. I opted out.
Don’t frigging call me and then put me on hold! I can understand it if I call you but if you call me then dammit be ready to talk to me when you call, especially if it’s about an optional survey and you start the call by making it sound important!
I don’t even bother answering my phone unless I see a name from my contact list.
Telemarketing became nonexistent when I got my cell phone because my number wasn’t listed. Now they try new ways to ensnare me, but letting the call go to voice mail is effective enough.
As I said, I’m expecting important calls and I’ve been playing phone tag. I don’t necessarily know the number they’ll call from and I can’t keep missing the calls, so I have to answer.
This was from my insurance company so I would have answered even if I did recognize the number. My beef isn’t with them calling, it’s with them calling and then immefuately putting me on hold for 5 minutes.
To take that even a step further, what I can’t stand is websites that have a “call me” button. Click the button, enter your info and they call you…and then you sit on hold for a few minutes.
I’ve never understood why they are so reluctant to give out their phone number, but if they are, at least set it up so they call you when someone is ready to take your call.
Well, the OP admits having an ongoing business relationship with the company represented by the caller. Such relationships imply that it is OK for them to call. And, the call, while not directly related to the services they provide, they do have a legitimate reason to call.
IMO, however, robo-calling customers and putting them on hold without telling them the purpose of the call is explicitly telling the customer that the company’s time is much more valuable than the customer’s. I would have been tempted to give bogus and conflicting answers to their poll just to let them know how worthless I feel their poll is.
Arrggghh! That’s one of the…no THE most annoying phone solecism that drive me up a wall. It’s always the same damned people too.
Related to this, it happens when I call and fail to get them ( which is fine, they’re busy or whatever ) and have to leave a voicemail and I tell them basically “don’t call me back, I’ll call you…I’ll be very busy the next several hours and can’t take your call” and will give pertinent information in the message.
And what do they do? Call back with a statement or question that would have been answered by a message they refused to listen to, that’s what.
I am sooo disappointed that scammers now robocall. It is so much less satisfying than talking to some idiot from a scam call centre.
The most fun you can have is making them so angry, they try to call you back in sputtering rage. I particularly like the ones that try to trick you into believing they are not some boiler shop in India by ringing with a thick Indian accent and trying to tell you their name is Jordan Peters, or some obviously Western name that no person with that accent has ever had. Even got a guy who claimed his name was Elvis once. (Yes, I know it is possible in some uncommon circumstances for an Indian to have a Western name, but the chances that only such people are employed in the same boiler shop is zero.)
I asked “Who is this?” and the Obvious Telemarketer From India said "Oh! Uhh… this is… [pause]… Umm, Rrrrrogah…?" As if he’d never actually vocalized the name Roger before. I couldn’t control myself, I said "You know, you can use your real name if you want, I’m sure it’d be easier. Now, what can I do for you, Umm,Rrrrrogah?"
Amazon’s customer service number appears to be a state secret. Pretty sure they have a “call you” button. I’ve found that does tend to work fairly reasonably, when using it the tool on other sites (i.e. when they call, I get a human immediately).
Re the OP: Dropped-Em RX is infamous for this. Sorry, if you call me, and then put me on hold, I’m hanging up.
They do that for your convenience. Show a little gratitude.
Customer service is dead. Nobody really gives a shit if they’re doing a good job, there’s no margin in doing a good job as long as you’re just like everyone else. They just want to do it to you some more, so now it’s marketing pretending to be about helping you.
My former housemate used to have a job doing IT support- inbound calls- where they were rated on length of call. He discovered he could get average call length waaaay down by occasionally answering in a fake Indian accent, except the bit where he said his thoroughly English name.
He actually is part Asian, albeit not Indian and born in the UK, and his middle name is very Asian, so if any customers in follow up calls said they hung up because ‘some Asian guy with an accent answered’, it just made the customer sound really racist, rather than making said housemate sound like a kinda lazy troll, until the supervisor actually listened to a few calls.
He did get caught and told to knock it off eventually.
That’s awesome. I always promised myself my last day at my previous job I would conduct all my calls in my best Dr. Evil voice–tone as well as attitude. Didn’t work out, though. I gave my notice and about 30 minutes later was escorted from the building (standard procedure in the industry). But I did tell my escort, very crossly, that I would not tolerate her insolence. She just giggled and said she’d miss me.
I called my old insurance company to have them cancel my plan. I was on hold for a minute or two and then given the option to leave a callback number where a “healthcare assistant” could call me back when I was next in the queue, so I did so.
This is a great idea; a solution to the whole problem of putting people on hold!
Except…
They called back 15 or 20 minutes later. I answered and the automated system asked me to hold for the next assistant, then put me on hold for 5 minutes.
Someone finally answered and when I explained what I needed she said that she would connect me with the billing department and put me on hold. After several minutes of bad Muzak I was once again given the option of leaving a callback number so that they could call me when the next “healthcare assistant” was available. Doing so was pointless (I’d simply end up in a loop of callback - on hold - callback - etc.) so I opted to stay on hold. After 15 or 20 minutes of the same bad Muzak I was connected with billing and they were able to cancel my policy.
Uh, they’ve got a system that subjects would-be cancelers to close to an hour of frustrating psychological torture. Sounds like they’ve got it zeroed pretty well.
I hate, hate, hate the websites where you can email them thru their site. Separate fields for name, email, & description & then it goes…nowhere??? I’d much rather have an email address that I can email to; that way I have a record that I did email them & when I did such. Of course, I understand why the company doesn’t want that.
Years ago, my Dad had one of those; little old lady insisted she dialed right & he answered wrong. :smack:
I received a call on my cell within the last two years, where the guy on the other end insisted I was inside the house and why wouldn’t I open the door and was I messing with his woman. I was at work. I told him that, and hung up. He called back, pissed that I was lying to him - I had just given him this number last night because I had a new phone so he knew it was right.
I handed the phone off to two other people at work to vouch for where we were, and he still thought I was scamming him. He did eventually stop calling.
