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Bank customers want toll-free numbers back

Fed up of long calls that are adding up to their phone bills, several people have demanded that banks re-introduce toll-free numbers again.

Many others felt that keeping customers on hold for a longer time, banks were forcefully advertising their products.

Khaleej Times called up several banks and confirmed that the toll-free numbers were redirected to a number with a ‘04’ prefix and the waiting periods were as long as 10 minutes before the caller decided to hang up.

The banks called included: Citibank on which a taped message said that the bank’s working hours were from 8.30am to 5.30pm and all calls should be made within this time. Khaleej Times called at 4pm.

The longest waiting period was that of Standard Chartered Bank and finally the caller gave up waiting without a response even after a full 10 minutes. MashreqBank was also redirected to a 04 number and no customer service staff was available.

Several people complained that phone banking was increasingly becoming an irritating business instead of a convenience. A frustrated customer of Citibank, M. Karim said, “It is difficult for me to get through the phone lines and speak to a phone banker after mid-afternoon because, though the banking hours are till evening, the taped message says to call between 8.30am and 5.30pm.”

People making calls from another emirate or a mobile also feel that they are at a loss. “I rely mostly on phone banking because I do not have the extra time to visit banks to pay my bills, but I have noticed recently that my bank keeps me on hold for several minutes while a message keeps repeating that all the customer service staff is busy,” said Sathish K., a customer of Standard Chartered, who uses his mobile to pay his utility bills through phone banking. “The touch-phone system to access services takes up a great deal of time, and now that the customer service keeps me on hold for longer periods, my monthly phone bill is steadily going up,” he added.

In a report done by Khaleej Times earlier, banks had said that due to the growth in the banking industry, the number of users had grown steadily over the years, thus creating a pressure on the call centres. While several banks took days to reply to the newspaper’s questionnaire, others ignored the issue totally.

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