Home phone Guides

5 tips for cutting the cost of customer service calls

Updated: Monday 23 January, 2012

By Anthony Hill - anthony.hill@consumerchoices.co.uk

Are calls to expensive customer service helplines pushing up your monthly landline bills? Then follow our top tips to reduce your costs when calling 0844, 0845 and 0870 premium rate numbers.

Calls to customer service helplines can keep you waiting as long as 13 minutes before you actually get to talk to a human being, according to research by consumer champion Which?. If that helpline number is a premium rate number, it could be costing you as much as 50p a minute from your landline.

Some landline providers, such as BT (www.bt.com), Plusnet (www.plus.net) and TalkTalk (www.talktalk.co.uk), do include calls to some of these numbers in their call plans. For customers of providers who don’t however, there are a few simple tips that you can follow to avoid costly calls to these premium rate numbers:

1. Visit the company’s website

Unless your customer service call is to report a problem with your broadband, your first port of call should be the company’s website. Most companies now offer live chat or email support on their websites, so you’ll be able to sort out your problem (as long as it’s not too technical) online.

Also, be sure to search through the companies FAQ section if it has one - your question or query may already be answered on there, saving you the time and money of calling a customer service helpline.

2. Have your details ready

If you have no choice but to call a customer services line, for example if the reason you’re calling is to report a fault with your broadband or a stolen credit card, make sure you have all the information you’ll need handy, as this will keep the length of the call to a minimum.

Details you may need include:

• Your account number
• Your account password and/or answers to your security questions
• A phone number you can be reached on
• Your home address
• Your email address.

3. Find out the cost of premium lines

If you’re not familiar with how much your landline provider charges for premium rate numbers, have a look at their tariff information online.

You can also find the cost (per minute) of calls to 0845 and 0870 numbers for all the providers listed on Homephonechoices.co.uk through the pop-up information on our best buy tables:

0845 and 0870 call rates are shown in our bestbuy pop-ups

You should be aware that unless calls to these numbers are included in your call plan (such as at weekends in the example above), you will also be charged a one-off call connection fee per call.

4. Get transferred for free

A lot of companies’ sales numbers are freephone 0800 numbers. While you may still have to wait for a call to be answered (sadly nothing can speed this up), calling a freephone number won’t cost you anything from your landline.

You can then say you’re trying to get through to the customer services department, and asked to be put through.

Freephone 0800 numbers aren’t free from mobiles, but telecoms regulator Ofcom is considering making them free as the number of mobile-only households increases.

5. Use an alternative number

Another good way to avoid paying sky high premium rates for calls to customer service helplines is to find an alternative number using www.saynoto0870.com.

Find a freephone, local or national rate number using the company search tool on the site. It lists alternative numbers for loads of companies, including BT, Sky, Virgin Media, NatWest, the Post Office, RBS and Waitrose.