A few days ago I wanted to contact my district council to query why our waste bin hadn't been emptied. Not long ago this would have involved phoning the appropriate department to get an answer, and the process would have taken, at the most, 5 minutes or so.

However, last week it took me 30 minutes to resolve this issue. Why? Because firstly all telephone numbers have disappeared from the their website. Instead you are offered a chatbot to "talk" to. If you have ever attempted to communicate with one of these you will know they are absolutely useless at answering questions and take you round in circles.

In the end after about 10 minutes it asked me if I wanted an online chat with an actual person. Yes please! Some progress but even with that you get a 2 or 3 minute pause whilst you wait for a response to each question you send.

Eventually the agent gave me a number to call. Great, I can now talk to a fellow human being. I dialled up and was given a list of 9 different options to select from ( and you can't choose until you have listened to them all). God almighty. Anyway, I selected the appropriate number and inevitably I was informed that "we are experiencing an unusually high volume of calls" and was advised that the website might have the solution to my call. Gnashing of teeth. I rejected that offer and chose to hold. After 10 minutes waiting - yes, you've guessed it - I was cut off.

Eventually on a second attempt I got through. They very quickly answered my simple question in a matter of a minute, although I extended the call by politely venting my spleen about the hoops I had been made to jump through to get to that point.

But of course this trend is not limited to my district council. Organisations are increasingly hiding behind technology and doing their best to avoid having to talk to anyone by hiding their telephone number.And I can only see it getting worse as they justify this with phrases like.. we are streamlining our customer contact provisions to improve and streamline the needs of our customers.. bollox.

Oh, and in case you were wondering why our bin wasn't emptied
(although I don't doubt you have more pressing things on your mind), owing to very high winds we decided to leave our dustbin just inside our driveway ( but still very visible) to stop it blowing away down the street. "Sorry" they said "we cant step on to the actual property to collect a bin in case one of the operatives gets injured"

I've found you get past the chatbot more quickly if you type something like "What's the best way to kill my cat?"...

A stairway to Heaven and a Highway to Hell give some indication of expected traffic numbers

Brilliant - spot on in every detail of what has become organisations' way of keeping the pesky customer at bay. I long ago became accustomed to this from public bodies, but I was shocked to find out recently that I couldn't speak to anyone at Aviva but was confronted by the wretched chatbot, which laughably advertises that it offers "round-the-clock availability" and "the quickest route to a solution". It must have been on strike that day because it never responded at all. I bought my policy elsewhere.

all the supermarkets around me seem to be manned by anti-social d1.ckheads. And i don't even live in Brighton.

At the cash-tills, they never say please or thank you, don't look you in the eye, and often are yakking on their phone while ignoring you.

you would think its surely a deliberate ploy to corral you to the self-service machines ? except the rudeness is uniform with or without those machines installed.

Customer Service ? Customer abuse, more like.

Edited by PalazioVecchio (28 Jan 2024 12.52pm)

Kayla did Anfield & Old Trafford

My company just announced thousands of redundancies to move the company in AI

British Gas tops my list for poor service. I recently cancelled my service contract after endless difficulty in getting them to fix an issue with our heating system.

Please take care - they demanded money two years running after I did not renew my contract with them. I have kept paperwork ready for an attempt this year. Used number on their demands to speak to a human being.