Australians stuck on hold for 96.5 million hours for waiting times

Frustrated customers are left hanging on the phone to customer service operators as they attempt to resolve endless disputes. See the list of the worst offenders.

Australian consumers are spending an average of 96.5 million hours stuck on the phone to customer service operators as they attempt to resolve endless disputes.

Frustrated Aussie customers were left hanging on the phone for an average of 7.2 hours last year — seven million more hours than 2021 — a report by digital workflow company ServiceNow has revealed.

Telcos topped the list of worst offenders for customer service, with 35 per cent of customers surveyed complaining about being left hanging on the phone for hours.

Government services and banks were also listed as having the worst customer service.

The travel and transport industries saw the largest rise in complaints while supermarkets remained the best rated customer service.

Eric Swift, vice president and managing director of ServiceNow Australia and New Zealand, said organisations needed to find smart ways to meet expectations of customer service, as consumers demand more in the face of cost-of-living pressures.

“Customer service is under pressure because businesses aren’t embracing technology as quickly as their customers, and their employees don’t have the tools to deliver the fast and effective service people expect,” he said.

Customer service is under pressure because businesses aren’t embracing technology.

“We’ve seen 2.5 million Australians make the shift away from traditional methods of contact towards technologies like brand applications and chatbots, yet employees are using outdated, disconnected tools to meet increasing customer demands.”

The report found businesses were pushing the envelope when it came to maintaining customer loyalty, with 7.3 days being the average time for an issue to be resolved.

Mr Swift said 2023 would be the year of “the big switch”, with consumers taking their business to the most customer-focused brands.

“Retail has some great examples of a fully digitised customer experience, where you can buy, track, exchange, report issues, and resolve complaints really simply, and customers can often solve most issues themselves online,” he said.

“The key is having a fully digitised experience across all channels. This allows organisations to automate the simple things. For more complex problems, employees need the right tools and information to understand the problem, so they know exactly what the customer needs, can show empathy, and get issues rapidly fixed.”

Telstra customer Ruth Hannah, from Mallacoota in Victoria’s East Gippsland, said she had spent countless hours dealing with the telco over issues with the tourist town’s “appalling” internet and mobile phone coverage.

“If you ring Telstra – even if you are answered, it often takes a very long time,” she said.

“Then you might get passed to five or six different people. And you just keep getting passed to other people.”

Ms Hannah said hours on the phone had left her feeling that the telco “puts absolutely no value on its customers time”.