Customer Service and Response Time

[TSPortMoody1]

Has something happened to Telus Mobility Customer Service. I always used to get reasonable response to phone calls/chat services. However in the last week or so it has been insanely bad - was on hold for 45 minutes today and on chat had 47 people ahead of me. It has never ever been this bad.

Also notice extremely slow response time on Telus's App (iOS). Has something happened system wise with Telus to precipitate such a negative change?

[NFtoBC]

First day back to work after a long weekend? Likely lots of incoming calls.

[TSPortMoody1]

Then they should have anticipated and provided extra coverage. Poor planning on their part should not constitute a customer service fiasco on my side.

[NFtoBC]

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@TSPortMoody1 wrote:
Then they should have anticipated and provided extra coverage. Poor planning on their part should not constitute a customer service fiasco on my side.

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One can only scale so much. There are limitations for both staff, and seats which affect the ability to provide extra coverage. While we would all like faster responses, longer wait times for a non-emergency situation is hardly a ‘fiasco’. 

[Lola]

Actually, 45 minutes is super speedy. I'd be thrilled. Rounding all times off, I waited 30 minutes for a cab to the doctor yesterday, then waited over 60 minutes for my doctor, then 35 minutes for a cab to the mall, then waited in line at a little boutique for 25 minutes, then waited another 45 minutes for a cab home, then waited 15 minutes for an elevator in my building, because walking up a dozen flights of stairs isn't ever happening to me. We wait, and it's good you can usually find chairs to sit on while you're doing that.

[TSPortMoody1]

OK so I get the point of this forum now. It’s full of Telus apologists (and more than likely Telus employees).

If you consider 45 minutes speedy this must be an inside job.

[Lola]

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@TSPortMoody1 wrote:
OK so I get the point of this forum now. It’s full of Telus apologists (and more than likely Telus employees).

If you consider 45 minutes speedy this must be an inside job.

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Lol, no, I work for the feds, so yeah, a 45 minute call wait is SPEEDY! You won't get that on a federal line. I'll confess to having uncles who've worked for Telus corporate, but they're retired now, and this gives me no loyalty, considering I've used Shaw for TV and internet for decades and refuse to switch to Telus for any reason. I use Telus for my mobile devices because the service has always been stellar, as has Shaw.

Also, if you can find call volume numbers for Telus CS, they'll maybe amaze you. The Telus Pharmacy Support Center lists an excess of 900 calls daily on weekdays and 500 on weekends, with each call lasting approximately 3 minutes. They don't give wait times that I've ever seen, but do the math. You can imagine other areas are much, much higher volume. Busy, busy, busy.

[JasonMillza]

Telus just raised everyones prices on BYOD etc without telling anyone.  That is why I think they are busy; I had to wait an hour to talk to someone.  And it is still not solved.

[Kimi]

On some occasions I have spent over 2 hours on hold and had to give up. The wait times have been like that for years and they do nothing about it and have no call back feature like ..ahem..Shaw has.

[Anaron]

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@JasonMillza wrote:

Telus just raised everyones prices on BYOD etc without telling anyone.  That is why I think they are busy; I had to wait an hour to talk to someone.  And it is still not solved.

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Are you certain that they didn't tell anyone? I believe they inform customers of price changes on the bill itself. It should be on the last or second last page.

[Syaoran]

The high cost of wages means less people working!  When there are less people working, that translates into much longer wait times.  It's a side effect of Canada's asinine and ignorance on the cost of living versus economics. 

[Exhile]

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@Syaoran wrote:

The high cost of wages means less people working!  When there are less people working, that translates into much longer wait times.  It's a side effect of Canada's asinine and ignorance on the cost of living versus economics. 

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There has to be an equilibrium between supply (Customer Service Reps) and demand (Customer in queue for help requests). Too many CSRs will result in too many inactive CSRs but shorter wait times while your scenario of fewer CSRs and longer wait times would occur. Cost of wages are a fixed expense and usually doesn't affect the overall net income generated by Telus. Otherwise the stock price of Telus would be lower due to lower profits to shareholders.

[Pskippy]

Are you referring to the increase in minimum wage? If so, not sure how that equates to fewer first level support agents since most (all?) of Telus’ first level support is off-shored (Philippines, etc).

Also, I can 100% relate to this thread. Being on hold for 45 mins with Telus means it’s a good day. I’m usually on hold for more than an hour. By comparison, I’ve never waited longer than 10 mins to speak to someone when calling Rogers, with the exception of when I called them during the $60 10GB promo back in Dec.

[Syaoran]

The increased minimum wage in Ontario does impact some of the Telus call centres.  The one by Scarborough Town Centre in Scarborough was pretty much eliminated when the wage jumped to $14 an hour.  The increasing wait times on hold have only been something I have personally noticed in 2018.  Before that, It was usually 6-10 minutes to get someone on the line.  Rogers has their call centres out east, in New Brunswick and Nova Scotia mostly.  Those provinces have lower wages, which makes them a more viable place to operate.  The one in Waterloo, Ontario and bulk of call centre jobs in Toronto were eliminated late last year with Rogers.  I have yet to reach the Philippines when calling Telus. 

[Exhile]

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@Pskippy wrote:
Are you referring to the increase in minimum wage? If so, not sure how that equates to fewer first level support agents since most (all?) of Telus’ first level support is off-shored (Philippines, etc).

Also, I can 100% relate to this thread. Being on hold for 45 mins with Telus means it’s a good day. I’m usually on hold for more than an hour. By comparison, I’ve never waited longer than 10 mins to speak to someone when calling Rogers, with the exception of when I called them during the $60 10GB promo back in Dec.

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Telus could not have off-shored their first level support agents to the Philippines because of the timezone difference, latency lag for troubleshooting connection problems and access to customer information. Wages as an expense is already covered in the income statement and from what I am aware of, Telus has been in the black for the last few quarters and not in the red. Therefore Telus has other reasons why the corporation is not hiring more call centre representatives to shorten customer wait times.

The information below is from the Telus's 2018 Quarter 1 report.

[Pskippy]

Time zone differences don’t necessarily mean anything. The company I work for employs many individuals in India who work Eastern time zone hours. Telus DOES off-shore a lot of 1st level support and those individuals are likely on shift work.

[NFtoBC]

Telus has hosted customer support in Central America, as well as a number of other locations. See Telus International for services and sites.

[Exhile]

@Pskippy & @NFtoBC I guess if off-shoring to Central America, the Philippines and India can cut expenses on employee wages by using inexpensive labour, higher profits will be distributed to shareholders. I didn't get a chance to glance over Telus's operations overseas in their 2018 Q1 Financial statement but it's assumed that Telus is expanding their business outside of North America. The Telus International website really convinced me.

[Lola]

Central America is "nearshoring," not offshoring; nearshoring is better than offshoring, but not as good as onshoring. The business movement is to reduce offshoring for nearshoring, with the hope of someday reshoring those jobs. It's been a movement for years; I'm not sure how it's going now. Offshoring is better profit, obviously. I recall a business report from a few years ago said Telus paid call center workers in the Philippines something like $340 per month. Imagine that here? Never.