Israel has a law on maximum hold times. Canada should do the same
“Please listen carefully as the following menu options have recently changed,” says a woman’s voice.
“Agent!” I shout into the phone, wondering if the torture would ever end.
One hour and 25 minutes. That is the amount of time I was on the phone recently, waiting for an Air Canada customer representative to rebook a cancelled flight from Toronto to Montreal. My wife had a similar experience a couple of weeks ago, waiting three hours for someone to take her call.
When I called, Air Canada’s call centre was apparently so overwhelmed that it took me 40 to 50 calls just to get into the queue — before the waiting time even started. It’s true that Air Canada is implementing a new passenger reservation system and there have been some glitches, but those waiting times seem unreasonable.
In fairness, it’s not just Air Canada. Many readers have probably had similar experiences with other companies: try to get an agent on the line to disconnect from a cable service or to receive a refund from a cellphone company, to name just two other common examples.
In fact, one survey conducted in the
U.S. estimated that on average, Americans spend 13 hours every year waiting for an agent. Public sector offices are no different: This week’s study by the Canadian Federation of Independent Business showed how tough it can be to reach a Canada Revenue Agency agent by phone. Service Canada also admitted a few years ago that only a third of the calls it receives are answered.
You have to wonder why companies would provide such bad service. Aren’t they worried about their reputation? It’s clear that they could spend more to enhance their customers’ experience — Air Canada, for example, makes more than $1 billion a year and has been a top performing stock on the TSX this past decade.
A new paper published in Marketing Science recently by Anthony Dukes of the University of Southern California and Yi Zhu of the University of Minnesota offers a simple and depressing answer to the puzzle of bad service — firms are keeping callers waiting and walking them through endless digital menus because it is profitable for them to do so.
Dukes and Zhu interviewed call centre managers in finance, technology and travel services and concluded that firms are basically playing a war of attrition. Companies count on the fact that eventually, if hassled enough, clients will give up on their complaint.
Moreover, when a company has a significant market share, it is less worried about its reputation since customers don’t have an alternative. Could legislation be the solution? To solve a similar problem, Israel introduced a law in 2019 that obliges firms to provide a human response within six minutes of accepting a call. A failure to comply with the “six-minute rule” carries a fine of about $8,250 (Canadian). The law applies to telecom companies, utilities, banks and insurance firms.
Though it’s still too early to accurately assess the new law’s effectiveness, preliminary feedback is positive. It may be time for Canada to introduce a law in the spirit of the Israeli rule. A parallel standard of expected level of customer service should also be introduced within the public sector.
In 2020, the business practice of harassing customers by making them talk to computers, enter endless loops of phone menus and listen to elevator music for hours is simply unacceptable.