Long phone waits but no answers

If you are ringing Telecom to report a fault you could wait up to 17 minutes - only to be disconnected.

But that's probably not as annoying as ringing Air New Zealand with an Air Points inquiry and being left hanging on the line for nearly three-quarters of an hour, then ringing back later in the day to get disconnected.

These are a sample of the frustrations the Weekend Herald experienced when it called eight well-known companies and Government departments in its latest phone survey.

The survey was conducted on two days, Thursday, November 11, and Monday, November 15, at 10am, 1pm, 4pm and 8pm. On the Thursday, we wanted to see how long it took to get a human voice - whether an operator answering straight away or by following automated prompts to get to an operator.

We found that bodies without automated prompts, such as the Auckland City Council, generally had a better response times than those with greetings or prompts.

Telecom fared worst in the first survey as the only company to take more than a minute to answer at all four calling times.

It didn't improve much in the second survey. It left callers waiting on the line for longer than other companies with prompts, such as Sky and Mercury Energy, anddisconnected after 17 minutes.

Head of sales Trish Keith said the disconnected call was unusual and would be investigated. She said Telecom was experiencing a higher number of fault-related calls that day due to weather problems.

Air NZ did not do much better. It not only took a long time to answer but also disconnected, a similar result to a previous survey when three out of four calls were disconnected.

The problem at Air NZ was not so much in reaching the operator, but in being transferred to someone who would answer an Air Points query.

Spokesman Mike Todd said the lengthy response times could be attributed to the company relaunching its Airpoints scheme this week.

While it increased staff to answer calls, the length of time devoted to answering queries was longer than normal, in some cases more than an hour. He did not know why the phone was disconnected at 4pm.

Overall, the Weekend Herald found that the Auckland City Council had the best response times in both surveys, reflecting the findings in four previous Herald surveys.

Mercury Energy, which was consistent in its response times on both days, improved greatly on the last Herald survey, while Sky had similar results to the previous one. Inland Revenue did worse than last time when its longest response time was just under 4 minutes. This time it was nearly 10 minutes.

additional reporting Juliet Rowan