News - EE angers customers with 50p queue jumping charge

[HEXUS]

The mobile firm added a paid queue jumping option to its customer helpline.

Read more.

[Tabbykatze]

Disgusting business methods, still not as bad as in America where companys have to pay for ISPs route their traffic with sufficient bandwidth for their data or more so.

[Roobubba]

Oh wow, glad I got out of there earlier! To be fair to Orange, the only reason I left was because of their poor data offerings. The service was always good and their customer service was decent when I needed it, too.

In other news, GiffGaff is posing a question to its users about charges: it presented 3 'options', none of which is at all competitive, and is facing a massive backlash from its customers.

I've just moved away from them in the wake of this proposal for changes to their service/charge structure, I think it was handled abominably so am taking my (very profitable) custom elsewhere. I paid £12 a month for unlimited data and used around 300-600MB per month. I only paid that much for the peace of mind of unlimited data so that I actually use my smartphone rather than not using it for fear of running over the allowance.

So EE isn't the only provider in the midst of a controversy at the moment!

[Biscuit]

That is utterly disgusting. Im tied in with them for another 6 months though i think Not that its an expensive contract or anything... Might see how much it costs to buy me out.

[directhex]

That is utterly disgusting. Im tied in with them for another 6 months though i think Not that its an expensive contract or anything... Might see how much it costs to buy me out.

Buyout costs full price, i.e. 6 months' full contract price, unless you move to another EE contract, where you get 25% off.

[shaithis]

I don't see the problem, don't pay the 50p to queue jump......

[Wozza63]

I don't see the problem, don't pay the 50p to queue jump......

I don't see much issue with it either, and it is good for those who urgently need an issue sorted like a business where no phone for an hour can mean £1000's lost.

[tonyd223]

It's not whether or not you pay, it's the fact that EE think that this is an acceptable way of doing business. There's no increase in call centre staff, there's not guarantee that your paid call will be answered immediately, and if you don't pay, you must be receiving worse service. Every time I've called EE Customer services in the last year it was because of a problem that EE had created; and I'm never going to pay them to fix their own problems.

Makes you wonder what planet their marketing people live on

[Major_Trouble]

It's not really an issue. If you don't want to pay you don't have to. Never the less when they next call me to bug me at some promotion (money grab) I will be putting them on hold but tell them they can pay me 50p to jump my queue.

[Taniniver]

To all the people saying "not an issue, just don't pay the 50p" - that rather misses the point. People who don't pay will wait even longer than before due to people who do pay jumping ahead of them in the queue.

[Biscuit]

To all the people saying "not an issue, just don't pay the 50p" - that rather misses the point. People who don't pay will wait even longer than before due to people who do pay jumping ahead of them in the queue.

Exactly. It does nothing positive for customer service. People wanting better service have to pay to get pretty much the same as what they had before, and normal people who don't pay have to wait longer.

Not only that but it sets a precedent for other companies to start doing the same thing.

If they want to offer some customers better service then set up a dedicated team specifically for those people to be used. That obviously doesn't make financial sense though, everyone will just stick to the 'free' service.
They know full well that people will end up waiting ages because they keep getting queue jumped, to the point they end up paying themselves. This is nothing more than a scheme to make money, it has nothing to do with improving service for anyone.

[Top_gun]

I think I'll pay the 50p when the time comes to terminate my contract with t-mobile!!! Just four months to go.

[Brian224]

There is certainly a financial incentive to move staff from non-paying to premium lines, as every time you reduce the staffing on the free line you increase the incentive for customers to pay.

[kalniel]

Exactly - they've now got an incentive to make the helpline as slow and miserable an experience as possible, that's not a win for customer service.

[Agent]

You often pay for support calls these days anyway, so another charge is taking the pee a bit.

[gagaga]

Fine by me - I price my time at £25/hour when I've got a choice of things -eg when deciding between connecting or more expensive direct flight, same rules apply here.