--- title: Here Are the Customer Service Practices You Hate the Most description: In a new customer service survey by Consumer Reports, those polled were most "highly annoyed" by rude or condescending employees, long wait times, and the difficulty reaching a live person on the phone. authors: - name: Brad Tuttle role: Senior Editor url: https://money.com/author/brad-tuttle/ bio: Brad Tuttle is a former senior editor at Money with over 10 years’ experience covering a vast number of personal finance topics, including careers, cars, travel, budgeting, investing, insurance, credit cards, consumer psychology, real estate, banking, and shopping and deals. education: Columbia University School of Journalism, MS at_money_since: 2014 articles: 366 covers: - Business - Banking - Career Advice - Credit - Credit Cards - Economy and Politics - Education - Health and Wellness - Housing - Identity Theft - Insurance - Investing - Lifestyle - Loans - Mortgages - Personal Finance - Pets - Professional Services - Retirement - Shopping - Taxes - Technology social: - https://twitter.com/bradrtuttle - https://linkedin.com/in/brad-tuttle-834b225 former_staff: true published: '2015-07-29T18:50:10.000Z' modified: '2024-05-16T10:23:08.000Z' section: Business tags: - Consumer Reports - Customer Service word_count: 274 canonical: https://money.com/bad-customer-service-survey/ type: Article source: structured-blocks --- > **Disclosure:** We research all brands listed and may earn a fee from our partners. Research and financial considerations may influence how brands are displayed. Not all brands are included. [Learn more](https://money.com/page/disclaimer/). ![150729_EM_WorstCustomerService](https://img.money.com/2015/07/150729_em_worstcustomerservice.jpg) The good news from the new [*Consumer Reports*](http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/magazine/2015/07/the-problem-with-customer-service/index.htm) survey about customer service is that overall it seems to be getting … less bad. The survey's findings, published in the September 2015 issue, indicate that consumers are less likely to be irritated by customer service than they were in 2011, when a [similar poll](http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/magazine-archive/2011/july/shopping/customer-service/overview/index.htm) was taken. That doesn't mean consumers are happy with the state of customer service. Far from it. "Many companies today are simply awful at resolving customer problems," Scott Broetzmann, president of [Customer Care Measurement & Consulting](http://www.customercaremc.com/), told *Consumer Reports*. “Customers spend valuable time and invest considerable effort—and get little in return.” Here are the practices and behaviors that get customers most annoyed: • 75% say they're "highly annoyed" when they can't get a live person on the phone to help with a problem; in 2011, meanwhile, 71% of those polled by *CR* said they were "tremendously annoyed” when they [couldn’t reach a live customer service rep](http://business.time.com/2011/06/07/customer-service-hell/) over the phone. • 75% are highly annoyed by rude or condescending employees. • 74% have been driven batty by disconnected phone calls placed to customer service lines. • 70% are highly upset by being transferred to a different customer service agent—who also can't help or is just plain wrong. Nearly 7 in 10 (68%) are also aggravated by companies that don't make it easy to find their customer service phone numbers, while two-thirds of consumers say they're annoyed by long wait times, phone trees that require callers to press multiple buttons, and the need to repeat one's personal information over and over. **MORE:** 10 Funniest & Most Creative Consumer Complaints Ever [Customer Service Hell](http://business.time.com/2011/06/07/customer-service-hell/) ```json { "@context": "https://schema.org", "@graph": [ { "@type": "BreadcrumbList", "@id": "https://money.com/bad-customer-service-survey/#breadcrumb", "itemListElement": [ { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 1, "name": "Home", "item": "https://money.com" }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 2, "name": "Business", "item": "https://money.com/business/" }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 3, "name": "Customer Service", "item": "https://money.com/customer-service/" }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 4, "name": "Here Are the Customer Service Practices You Hate the Most" } ] }, { "@type": "WebSite", "@id": "https://money.com/#website", "url": "https://money.com", "name": "Money", "publisher": { "@id": "https://money.com/#organization" } }, { "@type": "WebPage", "@id": "https://money.com/bad-customer-service-survey/#webpage", "url": "https://money.com/bad-customer-service-survey/", "name": "Here Are the Customer Service Practices You Hate the Most", "isPartOf": { "@id": "https://money.com/#website" }, "datePublished": "2015-07-29T18:50:10.000Z", "mainEntity": { "@id": "https://money.com/bad-customer-service-survey/" }, "inLanguage": "en-US", "breadcrumb": { "@id": "https://money.com/bad-customer-service-survey/#breadcrumb" }, "dateModified": "2024-05-16T10:23:08.000Z" }, { "@type": "Article", "headline": "Here Are the Customer Service Practices You Hate the Most", "articleSection": "Business", "image": [ { "@type": "ImageObject", "url": "https://img.money.com/2015/07/150729_em_worstcustomerservice.jpg", "width": 2100, "height": 1379, "caption": "150729_EM_WorstCustomerService" } ], "author": [ { "@type": "Person", "name": "Brad Tuttle", "url": "https://money.com/author/brad-tuttle/", "@id": "https://money.com/author/brad-tuttle/#author", "description": "Brad Tuttle is a former senior editor at Money with over 10 years’ experience covering a vast number of personal finance topics, including careers, cars, travel, budgeting, investing, insurance, credit cards, consumer psychology, real estate, banking, and shopping and deals.\r\n\r\n", "image": "https://img.money.com/2014/01/Brad-Tuttle.png?w=226&h=247&crop=1", "alumniOf": "Columbia University School of Journalism, MS", "sameAs": [ "https://twitter.com/bradrtuttle", "https://linkedin.com/in/brad-tuttle-834b225" ] } ], "publisher": "https://money.com/#organization", "datePublished": "2015-07-29T18:50:10.000Z", "description": "In a new customer service survey by Consumer Reports, those polled were most \"highly annoyed\" by rude or condescending employees, long wait times, and the difficulty reaching a live person on the phone.", "abstract": "In a new customer service survey by Consumer Reports, those polled were most \"highly annoyed\" by rude or condescending employees, long wait times, and the difficulty reaching a live person on the phone.", "@id": "https://money.com/bad-customer-service-survey/", "inLanguage": "en-US", "dateModified": "2024-05-16T10:23:08.000Z", "wordCount": 274, "keywords": [ "Consumer Reports", "Customer Service" ], "about": [ { "@type": "Thing", "name": "Business", "sameAs": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business" ] }, { "@type": "Thing", "name": "Customer service", "sameAs": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Customer_service" ] } ] } ] } ```