Call centre faults under fire

Being kept on hold by call centre staff is one of the pet hates of UK consumers, a survey has found.

Other criticisms of call centres include being passed from one staff member to another, not speaking to a real person and being forced to listen to irritating holding music.

Consumers in the UK make about 1.5 billion calls a year to the 4,500 help centres run by major organisations such as banks, energy suppliers and phone companies in the UK, according to the survey by Which? magazine.

As well as being annoying, the survey revealed that some call centres can also prove to be expensive.

Conduct code

Some firms operate free phone or local rate numbers but others, such as technical support helplines, use premium rate codes starting with 090 which charge anything up to £1.50 a minute.

Five major dislikes

1 Being kept on hold for a long time

2 Being passed round lots of different staff

3 Being unable to get through to a real person

4 Irritating hold music

5 Rude staff

Source: Which? magazine

As a result, any time left on hold can prove not only frustrating but costly.

"Sometimes companies put you straight in a queue, where recorded messages such as `Your call will be answered shortly' can mislead you into thinking you're not being charged for being kept on hold," the Which? report said.

To protect consumers, the report argued that a voluntary code produced by telecoms regulator Oftel for firms that use call handling systems should be made compulsory.