Crying babies and barking dogs on the line: the UK’s working-from-home customer service crisis has hit an all-time low

With every passing day, allowing crucial customer service staff to work from home becomes increasingly hard to justify. It’s more than three years after the Covid outbreak, but the public is still getting a raw deal and the problems are not limited to HM Revenue and Customs, where working from home has been blamed for plummeting customer care standards.

A Daily Telegraph reader wrote to us this week after a call to his bank was interrupted by a barking dog whose owner was working from home. And they are not alone. Last month, while trying to transfer money for a holiday, Santander locked me out of my online banking account. No call – or text – to explain it, I was simply frozen out of the app and told to ring the bank. It was 10pm on a Tuesday.

The next three hours were spent on the phone trying to contact Santander to find out if I’d been defrauded. When banks are increasingly shutting down branches, this isn’t a good look.

When I did eventually get through, the call handler was apologetic: “It shouldn’t have taken so long”, they admitted. I had actually got through three times before that – only to be disconnected each time. There was one common denominator – the representatives were all working from home.

In one instance, the call handler was clearly a concerned dad, struggling to juggle his distressed child with me, a potential fraud victim on the other end of the line. Each time I asked a question I was placed on hold – a delay I can only attribute to him doing two jobs at once or his poor home broadband connection.

A similar experience occurred a few months earlier with telecoms firm EE. The incredibly polite call centre staff member, a mother this time, apologised in advance and warned me that the call may go silent at times “because she’s got the children”.

Companies say they have adopted a hybrid model to adapt to workers’ needs. In a country where childcare costs more than £14,248 a year, it’s crucial they do, but there’s a balance to ‘A call centre worker warned me the call may go silent at times “because she’s got the children”’ strike. It seems absurd to me that the little access we have to human customer service these days amounts to someone half-listening to you in your hour of need.

So- called flexible working allows us to multi-task, such as looking after children, but what is the impact of taking too much on? The output, of course.

A Stanford Institute for Economic Policy and Research report in July warned the blurred lines between work and home life present a significant challenge. The study found a 10pc to 20pc drop in productivity for fully remote workers. And in customer service roles it’s the customer who loses out. At the other end of the spectrum, one in five British home workers admitted to falling asleep on the job, a recent survey of 2,000 staff revealed.

While Santander later apologised and offered £75 for the delay, whether it’s crying children, barking dogs or shoddy phone lines, it’s unprofessional and not the service I or anyone should expect from their bank – or any company they rely on for a vital service.

Have you had to deal with a customer service agent distracted by WFH? Email money@telegraph.co.uk