What I heard was hilarious and revealing when a call centre trying to keep my custom didn’t put me on hold

Autumn is always crunch time in the Ainscough household for insurance and service renewals, from car and house insurance to mobile contracts and broadband services - which always means I spend a lot of time haggling with various companies on the phone or via online chat.

During this latest cost saving review of my bills, I had opted to leave our current broadband provider for another company offering the same service for a much better price. There were then subsequent conversations with their customer service team, who couldn’t really help me, so I held strong and stuck with the switch.

Cue the obligatory call from the retention team, which on this occasion took a funny turn.

For clarity, this was so unexpected that I didn’t get a chance to make notes or record the call, so I’ll be paraphrasing at best. Here goes…

The call started in the usual manner, with questions around why I wanted to leave, authorisation checks and some general how are you chit chat. Once the obligatory hoops had been jumped through the very professional operator asked if I could hold for a few minutes while they looked for a better package, which I politely agreed to.

And that is when it happened.

Within a few seconds, I quickly realised that I hadn’t been placed on hold at all and that I could hear the private conversations between the caller and their colleagues.

Phrases like; “s***t, why is it only showing s**t packages”, “how am I supposed to compete with that offer” and “why is this system so slow”, along with discussions on how they could at least get close to the great offer I had received elsewhere echoed from my phone - which I had put on speaker at that point so my family could also enjoy the hilarious moment as well.

This went on for a while, with long periods of silence, lots of back and forth and one eureka moment when they finally found a way to match what I was being offered. Then they clearly realised their mistake and I was immediately put on hold.

After a few minutes of whimsical hold music, the call centre agent returned to the call and the deal was done.

The result, I saved about 50% on what I was previously paying with the same company, which goes to show just how much you can save if you persevere. 

What I have learned from my peek behind the curtain is that you might have to work your way through a few departments before you get the team that can offer you the deal you want. You are in the driving seat and there is almost certainly some mild panic going on behind the safety of that hold button and they want to keep you as a customer, so stick with it.

I also do wonder if all of that call was ‘recorded for training and monitoring purposes’.