The Continuing Saga of the Smart Meters

[fishman65]

Well here we are again, trying to get in touch with a human being at British Gas. The agents on the site, the ones you can chat to via messenger, are all busy. All day, every day. If I phone, I get directed back to the website by the nice robot lady who's job it is to keep annoying customers away from the busy agents on the phone lines. So back we go to the busy agents online who are, you guessed it, busy.

[pulisa]

I'm sure your call was very important to them though?

[Lencoboy]

Sounds like certain employees at BG, BT, etc are jumping on the 'can't be bothered-ness' bandwagon, similar to employees of certain sectors within the NHS. Basically trying to get away with doing as little as possible, whilst using the pandemic, austerity, etc as a smokescreen/justification for their practices, rather than some of them simply being inept employees who probably aren't fit for the job in the first place.

There's always been lazy employees and 'lead-swingers' to a certain extent, but they seem to have become more noticeable over the past 5 years or so, and the events of the past 2 years alone have seemingly further cemented their god-given rights to poor practices.

[fishman65]

I'm sure your call was very important to them though?

Oh immensely important Pulisa. I think we can put BG agents in the same category as LFTs and hen's teeth. Oh and victories for Everton FC.

[MyNameIsTerry]

Sounds like certain employees at BG, BT, etc are jumping on the 'can't be bothered-ness' bandwagon, similar to employees of certain sectors within the NHS. Basically trying to get away with doing as little as possible, whilst using the pandemic, austerity, etc as a smokescreen/justification for their practices, rather than some of them simply being inept employees who probably aren't fit for the job in the first place.

There's always been lazy employees and 'lead-swingers' to a certain extent, but they seem to have become more noticeable over the past 5 years or so, and the events of the past 2 years alone have seemingly further cemented their god-given rights to poor practices.

Regardless of Covid the phones still ring and they get answered the same. In fact, these industries aren't hampered by Covid other than staffing issues and restrictions on site visits (not considering the halt on debt collection activity).

Poor practice was there long before Covid and has not been impacted much by it either since very little is by way of physical contact. Bosses won't be relaxing their staff, the staff will likely be under even more pressure to get work done with mounting backlogs due to staff shortage and halts on sending out engineers to obtain data or resolve problems.

[pulisa]

Covid has been the excuse for such a lot of poor practice. If in doubt blame Covid...

[Lencoboy]

Covid has been the excuse for such a lot of poor practice. If in doubt blame Covid...

Terry is correct that poor practice from employees has been a thing long before Covid, but you're also correct in the sense that Covid seems to have accelerated and exacerbated such practices/attitudes, and of course, blame gaming.

So it's now not only just 'it's the cuts/govt/Brexit wot made me screw up', but also 'it's the pandemic wot made me screw up'!

[MyNameIsTerry]

That's excuses for bosses. When you don't hit your targets in a call centre or admin roles they won't work. I'm sure many have increased targets because far before employee wellness comes those reports to senior management and sh1t only travels down.

I can remember many employees who held the companies I worked for in more contempt than any customer I ever came across. They saw how bad it was from the inside, tried to help and got nothing for it. Many go elsewhere. Some of us end up in places like this forum.

Covid might be an excuse for one boss to try to deflect but other bosses will see it for the BS it is. Outwardly all bosses will rally together and tell the world whatever the company message/excuse is. Go sit on the shop floor and the lowest paid will tell you what is wrong because they see how crap customers get treated and may be the next on the phone after that previous poor employee hung up.

I think you go further being pleasant and understanding than ranting (not saying fishman is) in many cases. The good employee thinks how nice you are and really wants to help. The poor employee thinks who cares unless you are ranting so does as little as possible. Complaints get bumped purely to get Mr Shouty buggered off but you will want to help him far less than the poor old lady baffled & upset by errors on bills who you can relate to someone you know.

[Carnation]

Fishman, it's one of my bugbears, waiting in a never ending queue for some human to answer my call. Utilities are the worst. All of them. A couple of days ago I had to contact the water company. After pressing 1 for this, 2 for that, 4 for everything else, I waited an hour before a recording asked if I'd like a call back. 2 hours later I got the call back which isn't a call back at all, its a position nearer to the front of the queue. Another further 15 minutes and I eventually got through to be told they couldn't deal with my query and that it was the other water company I needed to contact. So now I go about my day doing my chores with the handset basically rubber banded to my leg and while waiting I've done the laundry, cleaned the house, made lunch, eaten lunch, washed up, had a couple of toilet visits and fed the cat. Lol.
Whenever I get through to customer services now, I never mention the long wait because I'm sure they are aware of that. I try to perky as I can be, again they will be dealing with a lot of grumpy customers. I also feel if you are nice you may get a better result from them, even though my insides are turning over with loss of patience and irritation. It's like it everywhere with all the companies unfortunately.

[fishman65]

Hi folks and thanks for your input. I've just tried the chat facility with British Gas again with no luck. Our bills were due to be paid on the 4th but haven't been on account of a cash flow problem. I hate being late with payments, and ranting certainly isn't in my nature. Victor Meldrew isn't my style. If anything I'm too far the other way, I think our personalities come across online.

I wouldn't say the 'incommunicado' status is default with all corporate businesses. Our broadband is with BT and there's always someone on the chat option, ditto Three mobile. However I'd say British Gas have been one of the worst in that respect. The left hand never seems to know what the right one's doing. But then Utility Warehouse weren't much better.