UKH

I was reflecting today on the number of times people in every business or service imaginable will say "I'll call you back" or "[other person/dept] will call you back" when they are not able to resolve/answer/perform/etc. whatever you are inquiring for/about.
And then you never get a call back.

I generally find the failure to call back runs between about 75% and 100% (lower end for people you are trying to buy things from, higher end for local councils).

Now, I've never really worked in any capacity where I would be promising to call people back or having others pass notes to me requesting that I call someone back so I have trouble understanding why people even say this. Why not say "call us back in [time period] and we should have an answer/someone available to chat", it's less effort, it shifts the responsibility onto the person making the inquiry and it avoids the inquirer getting hacked off when they don't hear anything back.

So, why do people say this?

In reply to henwardian:

To make you go away.

In reply to bouldery bits:


Does that work?
Speaking personally, if it's something I'm trying to pay for then the service/shop/company just loses my custom and if it's not something I'm paying for then I'm going to phone back again and again until I get an answer/resolution.

In reply to henwardian:

It's just a conversation closer, they think what's what you want, so that's what they say.

In reply to henwardian:


Same here. Sounds like you've had an annoying time. I follow my Mum's example I grew up with and keep ringing whoever it is. Ringing ever phone line in an organisation asking for a certain person was funny, he had 4 different people pass on a message - I got an apologetic email explaining the delay. He had no escape.

In reply to henwardian:
I'd already waited a long time for my certificate, and felt forgotten. I'm not usually like that.

In reply to henwardian:

Hopefully I can give some insight into this.

Worked for an energy supplier in the billing department inbound phone calls some years ago. We couldn't always solve the more complex problems there and then. Sometimes it required a systems expert, a manager, a different department. Most of which transfers don't have a direct inbound number, or extention. For example I couldn't just plug in a number and get exactly who I wanted. Or we might've been so busy the experts and managers were on inbound with us so had that to deal with.
If you were to ring back, there's no guarantee you'd get who or what you needed. So we'd leave a note for the person you needed to ring back because then at least the right person would be able to deal with what you need.
The problem is you're then relying on someone else to follow it up.

Then from the point of view of being handed a call back request. It wasn't always as simple as just picking up the phone and ringing back. Of course it helped if you had a well managed diary, and if requests were passed with the proper information (which they weren't always). We had to meet inbound targets, call time, off call times etc. making out bounds would ruin those targets as we were inbound. Seeing a huge que building, then not logging in to take another call but instead calling back on what was most likely a request with little to no information.

Manager call backs aren't all that easy, people tend to have the expectation that every agent has a manager sat behind them waiting to jump on the phone as soon as something tiny went wrong. Not true. A team of 12 had one manager, who had a lot to deal with and in busy periods call backs just weren't an option.

I've also worked on for a phone based fleet management company, dealing with vehicle breakdowns, services etc. there it was possible to direct transfer to an individual, but if they were on the phone, it ends up as a call back request. And we got mega busy at times, so often you'd get back from a dump and have a pile of call back requests to deal with. Those that seemed irrelevant, minor or had a lack of info on them would get binned. Too busy to do otherwise. If it was actually important, theys ring back and it'd get dealt with. Hopefully.

It's not ideal, and mega stressful. Personally I always felt guilty missing call backs, or passing on request that I just knew wouldn't be followed up. But it happens. Glad to be away from it all now!

In reply to henwardian:

i know the answer to this. I'll post it later

In reply to Tomtom:

That is very interesting to know what is happening on the other end. And it's probably useful for deciding exactly how to deal with folk on the phone from my end.
It's very hard not to give some innocent person an earful when you've spent months or years and dozens of e-mails and calls trying to get something resolved!

In reply to henwardian:

Deffo. Working in a call centre at 19 certainly set me a president as to how to speak to people on the phone. Granted I get wound up and have had arguments when companies have messed up, but there's a tactful way of doing it. Like you say, it's hard not to give the innocent one an earful. You grow a thick skin, but it gets you down before long. Especially getting an row because someone else messed up... Even before you've had chance to read the notes!

Best bet, take names of everyone you talk to. Ring up, and use those names. They'll soon get in trouble if they're consistently missing call backs.

In reply to henwardian:

What TomTom said ^. A lot of it is due to call centre statistic targets where long duration calls are frowned upon, or the incoming queue is building up, or finding the info will take time. Unfortunately incoming calls will normally take priority, and that's why the outgoers sometimes get missed when the incoming queue goes mental later on in the day.