Are you paying too much for ...... customer service?!?

This will be a relatively short one.

I'm concerned about a growing trend with UK companies. I don't know if this has caught on in the US yet; I certainly hope not.

More and more service companies are switching their toll-free support numbers to premium numbers. These can cost from a under a pound per minute to several pounds.

I'm not naive. I know that there are costs associated with providing customer service. This and other business expenses are normally spread amongst the entire customer base when providers set their fees. So I do know that these costs are ultimately borne by the consumer.

I also understand the benefits of apportioning certain costs only to the customers who use them. For instance, cell phone providers routinely let you choose between paying a set rate for texts, or only paying for the texts you send. I can see why businesses would like to remove every cost possible from their normal running expenses - because then they can advertise a lower rate.

But in this case, the overwhelming reason *against* such premium numbers is that ultimately there is no impetus for businesses to improve their products and services to reduce the consumer's reliance on phone support.

Our phone and internet provider, Toucan, is the most recent we've noticed to move away from toll-free support. Their rates did not reduce, but when our internet went out, we had to pay to phone them - twice - only to find out that the problem was at their end. An exchange had blown. I fail to understand why we had to pay to find out they had technical issues.

It's a problem I've encountered frequently since moving to the UK. UK companies seem to have no sense of customer service. Waitstaff are surly and inattentive, shop assistants seem as though they would rather you shop elsewhere, and the big companies, well, just don't get me started on the big companies. The fact that UK concerns feel it is appropriate to charge customers for the shortcomings of the business just follows on from that.

So if you are shopping for a service provider in the UK, be sure to factor in potential support calls into the cost of doing business with a company. Because if companies won't listen to their customers over the phone, perhaps they will listen to their plummeting sales.

In case companies don't catch on, I would like to do them one better. From now on, I would only like to pay for the portion of their advertising budget I use.