How long is too long being kept on hold?

[#1]

The Customer Support Stats page says:

"We actively monitor our peak times to ensure we always have enough people on the phones to answer your queries, without keeping you waiting too long in a queue."

Yet, the same page also informs me that the average answer time today was over 48 minutes.

That's far too long in my book, yet from about 4 calls experience, sounds typical.

Plusnet are good value, when everything's working, and when I have finally got through to someone, they've been great.  Would it really break the business model to have a few more staff on the phones at peak times?  Will you take transparency one step further and publish your call waiting time target, and the proportion of calls that were answered on target?

[#2]

If they keep you waiting long enough you are likely to ring off. Bingo problem solved.

[#3]

i dont know if its correct but its here http://www.plus.net/supportpages.html?a=212

Current calls waiting	Longest call waiting now	Average answer time today
66.04	Currently unavailable	34 minutes and 12 seconds

[#4]

of course the averages include those people who hung up, battery died, got caught short, lost the will to live or died holding the line so the true waiting times will never be known.

[#5]

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@Sam4 wrote:

Yet, the same page also informs me that the average answer time today was over 48 minutes.

That's far too long in my book...

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Anything over three minutes in my book, but then I remember the days before call centres were invented.

Staff on this forum have been reassuring us for many years that call waiting times are going to be reduced.........soon. I think some of the newer ones genuinely believe it! 

Most of us are expecting porcine aeronautics somewhat sooner. 

[#6]

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Most of us are expecting porcine aeronautics somewhat sooner. 

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That is just being plain silly.

Gee that flying pig just missed me.

[#7]

I only read this thread tonight and there are some valid pigs points being made.

What has genuinely surprised me is that having just checked using the link above now, it appears that the call stats show that the phones were answered around 07:30 and didn't stop until 23:00. The calls the day before finished closer to midnight.

To me, that's an indication that somethings going wrong and I'm sure non Plusnet customers have noticed that too.

[#8]

Said current wait 15 minutes now 17 minutes and still listening to loud, awful repetitive music.

They are a joke.

[#9]

Stats SHOULD show how long customers took to be connected NOT the length of time a call was in the queue which, as has been pointed out, would include those who hung up.  If I recall correctly HMRC was caught out using the latter measure to flatter its stats.

Perhaps the out of hours calls in the stats are people who rang and got no answer because everyone had gone home.

[#10]

My wife has commented that our phone seems to be stitched to my ear and how do I stand the appalling loud, repetitive music that she has to put up with across the room.

[#11]

In response to your original question I would argue that if your custom was important to any company your call would be answered pretty quickly. If it's not answered within 10 minutes maximum your custom isn't important.