Membership by phone

[Flinders]

I've just spent two days trying to get through to renew my family's memberships by phone (I had a query about insurance so the website wasn't a suitable option).

You wait and wait on the phone, and then are asked to leave a number, which I did. Five times. (I tried at different times of the day.) And only after I got very cross about it did I get a call back, the first four times, nothing. It seems that there is only *one person* who is doing the job of answering the phone, which is clearly not nearly enough provision, and not fair to the person concerned who will no doubt be dealing with a lot of cross people.

Anyone else have the same problem?

[ket]

Sounds like its an outsourced service with a provider who most likely shares inbound calls with many other clients it services and/or insufficient agents manning the calls. General trend is towards 'self service' via internet making it cheaper to run and usually 'customer service' is the item sacrificed.

[gaz]

The membership department was outsourced in 2007. This was widely regarded as having caused more problems than it solved and as a result it was bought back in house towards the end of 2013.

I have no reason to believe that has changed.

[AndyK]

It is run in-house. Responding to phone calls does still seem to be an issue and this is a handy example I can mention next time I'm talking to the relevant director. Flinders, do you remember whether you were dialling the general enquiries number (ending in ...300) or the membership number (ending in ...301)?

Andy (Cycling UK trustee)

[PH]

It is run in-house. Responding to phone calls does still seem to be an issue and this is a handy example I can mention next time I'm talking to the relevant director.
Andy (Cycling UK trustee)

Communication in general - it's just inconsistent, phone calls and emails, sometimes there's a prompt reply and all is well, other times there's no response at all. It's a shame as everytime I've got through the service has been good.