Brands urged to divulge call menus

UK firms are being urged to show they really care about their customers by handing over details of their call centre menus, allowing people to get straight through and potentially saving the £100m a year consumers spend “on hold”.
The man behind a new call-centre queue-busting website, Nigel Clarke, has devoted seven years to researching, calling and cataloguing the intricate phone menus of many UK companies – from BT to Virgin Holidays – for the online service, at pleasepress1.com.
By using the simple telephone key codes published on the site, it is claimed consumers will be able to shave several minutes off their call times to contact centres, for hundreds of firms listed.
According to Clarke, a self-confessed “call centre menu enthusiast”, the worst businesses have more than 80 options in their phone menus, with up to seven levels of menu. “Some might say this is the modern equivalent of Dante’s circles of hell,” he said.
Among the worst offenders are HMRC, where it can take up to 6 minutes just to get through its phone menus before a long wait in the queue at the consumer’s expense. Meanwhile, Sainsbury’s, Argos and Lloyds TSB had between 30 and nearly 80 menu options, taking up to four minutes to get to the right number.
Clarke said: “If companies care about their customers, why not make the site a directory of numbers to help customers navigate through? No one has details on their own sites of the numbers to press.
“Everyone knows that calling your insurance or gas company is a pain but, for most, it’s not an everyday problem. However, the cumulative effect of these calls is really quite devastating when you’re moving house or having an issue,” he added. “I’ve been working in IT for over 30 years and nothing gets me riled up like having my time wasted through inefficient design. This is why I’ve devoted the best part of seven years to solving this issue.”