Ridiculous call wait times. How is this acceptable?

Helpful Neighbour

It seems that calling Telus customer service means being put on hold for long periods of time.  At the moment I have been on hold for over an hour waiting for the customer loyalty department.  We are at the end of a three year contract and I am fed up with waiting on hold with Telus. Over the last three years, with all the issues we have had with our equipment, calling telus and waiting on hold, probably total days of wait time.  This is ridiculous.  I recall in the 90s Telus featured frequently in the news for their atrocious customer service.  Lot's of bad publicity, and eventually the got it together. Now it seems we are back in the 90s again.  I seriously doubt I will renew my service with Telus for this reason.


Don't sweat the small stuff.  This is a busy time of year for providers.  I use Skype to connect with the too free number so that I can work while waiting for a CSR.  Was only 30 minutes this afternoon. The CSR had to transfer me to Loyalty Department - happened in 2 minutes.


As you are calling the Loyalty Department you will likely receive a gift for 2 year extension.  So, don't sweat the small stuff!



One hour and twenty minutes on hold for me now. No option for a call back. Every time I call no matter what time of year it is at least an hour.

Telus has a real problem. Stop making excuses.
Really unacceptable wait times to find out why I suddenly don’t have internet! Time to move to a different provider, every time I have to call Telus for anything it’s long wait times.
I am approaching 2 hours of waiting for support. It's actually making me really angry that they think that I have nothing better to do.

Sounds like you are frustrated and rightfully so. Just remember that you are not the only one with issues, and in my experience with customer service people call in for the silliest of things and clog up the queue. Put the phone on speaker and go do something else, that's the only thing you can do


Completely agree - I have tried the chat and their phone line to cancel my TV service. I tried a few weeks ago and was put on hold for an obscenely long time. Almost long enough for me to consider cancelling all my services with them. With all the technology and opportunities available to have people manning a call center at all hours this is unacceptable. 


Here are suggestions: 


1) If you have a virtual agent.... then allow customers to cancel their services easily. 

2) Have an opportunity for a callback - standard feature ... offered by many companies 

3) Do not bundle services online to make changes ... the current checkout is very confusing and frustrating 


Given you are a tech/communications company - I expect a much higher level of service. 


Very frustrated customer!!!!!! (I have composed this while being on hold on your phone line and also queued on chat. 



$14 an hour tends to force companies to cut back.  It isn't an excuse, just a sign of the times.  The customer service at Telus has been this bad for quite a while now, so it isn't just the holidays.  Unfortunately, the holidays just make it even worse than it already was.  


I have personally found that the wait times with Telus are alot longer than "any" other company I have ever dealt with. However, when I have been able to get through the support staff who answer my call are extremely helpful and friendly and go out of their way to be helpful. I would never blame the staff themselves as I feel it is a corporate decision by Telus leadership not to have enough staff to answer calls in a timely manner. Perhaps the CEO or other high ups in Telus will read these comments and do something. I have also found that there are times when the I have called in and I get a recording that the office is not open until a certain time but I have called in a few minutes after that "certain" time.