What has happened to Britain's telephonists? Has there been a cull??

Why is it so bloody difficult to get through to a company?


Want to speak to a train station? Ring National Rail Enquiries in India.


Need to know where the DVLA office is? Phone the automated line in Swansea.


Want to place an order with your catalogue? Please key in the item's code, followed by your card and account number.


Trying to find out your bank balance? Don't make me laugh!!|||I want a law passed that makes it illegal to have call centres abroad AND all those systems that answer your call and put you in a feckin queue. I do not want to pay to sit in a queue.





I am quite happy to get the engaged tone and try again later, or sit and listen to the ringing tone until someone is ready to talk to me. I do not want to pay for the time I am waiting.





It is just one of the symptoms in the decline of standards in this country.|||They have disappeared because they are more expensive than an electronic voice.


If I was running a business, I would advertise the fact that we employed real live people, and that the robots were not allowed to have any contact with our valuable customers.





Mind you, I would imagine answering a phone all day long to the berks that are likely to call would be a pretty frustrating job|||They have all been digitally remastered !!!|||I HATE the (say in paki accent) "Good morning, you have got through to Brarbera, how are you, vat is yoor name, vie haf you not payed dis bill Meestor smeet, haf you a credit card, fy haz you not got a credit card you should have credit card to pay thees beeel meestor smeeth!!!" Why should a pakki ***** shout at ME over the phone coz I havent got a bloody credit card to pay of something that is 2 days late coz the BANK messed up the bloody payment in the first place. I did tell her to piss of.|||They are all still there. They just muck you about by pretending to be Indian or a computer.|||Outsourcing, cheap labour, a vision of an advanced technological society that excludes humans in the equation, options, our reliance on computers to do our work for us, our inability to recognise that we are heading towards a megabyte meltdown.........................|||Okay, so far all the answers have been pretty short-sighted and, sorry to say, a little to consumer-oriented.





It isn't the small to medium size enterprises (SME's) that are utilising IVR's and off-shore call centres, it's the major corporate players. And who's to blame? Well, it's actually us, the consumers. We are forcing the major banks and insurance companies into off-shoring by demanding lower and lower prices. It's a very competitive industry and wherever cost savings can be achieved (such as by closing UK call centres and off-shoring or utilising automated telephone systems) the organisations really have little choice but to do so.





I couldn't help notice that a couple of Royal Bank of Scotland businesses (NatWest and Direct Line) are actually including in their television adverts that they have UK only call centres. It's a real shift in perception of the consumers; one minute we're craving lower and lower costs for everything from groceries to finances and cars, and the next we're (potentially) happy to negate lower costs in favour of speaking to English (or more often Scottish) 'real' people.





I work as a contact centre manager and regularly study the industry. A recent survey conducted by CCF magazine (aimed at the Call Centre industry) stated that British consumers would rather be treated poorly by British advisors than deal with Indian based advisors.





My advice? Appreciate you can either get the best savings/interest/service from an operator using automated IVR's or off-shore call centres, or pay the premium for being with an (often smaller) UK operator where you get the benefit of a real, British advisor on the other end of the phone.





All the best.