According to new research from Nationwide, the average Briton spends a staggering 80,870 minutes of their life on the phone trying to sort out problems. That is roughly 56 days. In that time, you could potentially read between 15 and 25 books, learn a new language, or watch over 1100 episodes of your favourite TV show, assuming each lasted for 45 minutes. One in three say that poor customer service is their biggest bugbear, according to the survey. Here are the ten most annoying things.
Phone cutting out while on hold (30.2%). You’ve been listening to the same piece of music for quite some time now. If you’ve done any freelance work recently and needed to ask a question about a tax return, you might be familiar with the truly abysmal hold music on the HMRC helpline. I would imagine spending 24 hours watching Mrs Brown’s Boys whilst trapped in a swimming pool filled with hungry piranhas might be mildly more enjoyable than the track they use on loop. When I was a Carphone Warehouse customer, I once heard Thunderclap Newman’s Something In The Air non-stop for about half an hour, and even now it makes me shudder a little when I hear its opening refrain, even though it’s a rather good late ‘60s number one song. Worse than torture chamber tunes, however, is being placed on hold and the line subsequently going dead. Did your signal die? Or did the person you were speaking to press the wrong button, either inadvertently or to avoid a grilling? Either way, you’ll just have to go to the back to the queue and start again.
Long queues and/or waiting times (30.1%). Whilst I accept some occasions might be busier than usual in terms of call volumes, this seems to be the standard message that now greets you when calling large companies.
It stretches the limits of credibility somewhat. Pressing ‘5’ for a callback rarely elicits much joy either.
Being passed on to different departments (28%). The joy of starting your enquiry from the beginning with a new person. What a delight.
Having to speak to an automated phone line (27.8%). Try as I might, I can’t resist the temptation to answer questions in a really sarcastic tone in this scenario.
Abrupt or rude tone (27%). There’s nothing like a sarcastic or condescending tone of voice to get your back up, especially when you’re calling with a difficult query.
Not being listened to (25%). The temptation to turn into Victor Meldrew is never far away in this scenario.
Only having access to an online chatbot (24%). In my experience, these are next to useless.
Being put on hold (23%). I understand this might occasionally be necessary, but it often seems to be the default option for many places.
No telephone contact number (22%). Some organisations seem to go to extreme lengths to bury their phone number in an obscure corner of their website. It’s almost enough to bring the 118 men out of retirement in a bid to track down the number, until you remember they cost £2.43 per minute, plus your phone company’s network access charge.
Unresponsiveness to issues and/or complaints (21%). Fob-offs are sadly all too common.
In short, it’s no wonder that the amount of voice calls we make is falling, given all of these frustrations. The amount fell for the first time since records began in 2017, and these days we are more likely to use our smartphones for browsing the internet, social media, and sending WhatsApp or text messages.
I don’t know about you, but if my phone rings (which is increasingly rare these days), I’ll never answer it if I don’t have the contact number stored in my contacts. I go by the theory that they’ll leave a voicemail if it’s important. They rarely do.
I’ve switched off the majority of my notifications, in a bid to wrest control back from technology constantly distracting me. I’ve even been tempted to get a ‘dumb phone’ and take a proper social media break. Everything seems to descend into bile and bitterness these days, and reading it can be draining. Perhaps we would all benefit if social media platforms were switched off for a month as an experiment.
Anyhow, your call is exceedingly important to me, and as a reward for getting this far in the column, please note you are number one in the queue. To proceed, please press all the buttons on your handset at the same time, then hang up.
