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How long is too long when waiting for a company to answer your call? In Spain, it’s three minutes. Under a new law, any large company (250 employees or making €50m a year) that keeps callers waiting for longer can be fined up to €100,000 (around £86,000). Customers also have the right to be put through to a human, rather than having to deal with an automated phone system. Some British MPs want similar laws to be introduced in the UK. Robert Halfon (pictured below), Conservative MP for Harlow, has put forward a new Private Members’ Bill that proposes several measures to end what he calls the “Kafkaesque torture chamber of customer service”. In a speech to Parliament on 26 October he argued that utility firms – energy, water, broadband etc – must answer your call within 10 minutes, and give you the option to speak to a real person. He also wants automated menus to be restricted. Mr Halfon said: “How often do we have to wait 15, 20, 30 or 40-plus minutes on the phone to get through, after spending the first five minutes being asked to press 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 or 6?” He added that customer- service standards haven’t recovered after falling during the Covid pandemic, and claimed some companies are using the after-effects of lockdown as an excuse for ongoing poor service. Halfon’s right that waiting times shot up during the pandemic. In 2020, customers phoning broadband and landline firms had to hold for an average of 4 minutes 9 seconds, nearly double the length in 2019. However, this fell to 2 minutes 16 seconds in 2021 as life began to return to normal. Virgin Media was the national provider with the longest waiting times in 2021, making its customers hold for an average of 3 minutes 45 seconds. That was nearly 90 seconds longer than Sky, and almost two minutes more than BT. At 31 seconds, Now Broadband answered calls quickest, which might surprise Halfon. In his Commons speech he criticised Now for taking over two months to set up a colleague’s broadband. Halfon says that if firms don’t answer calls in what he describes as a “pretty generous” 10 minutes then they should be “fined heavily and the money paid back to the customer through rebates”. However popular this may prove with the public, his bill is unlikely to be passed. MPs typically use Private Members’ Bills to raise awareness of an issue they feel is being neglected, hoping it will influence laws in future. But it’s far from obvious that such a law would work – or is even desirable. Industry regulations often have unintended consequences that raise prices or weaken customer service. If broadband firms have to hire more staff to answer calls, that cost may have to be passed on to the customer in higher bills. Or it could have the opposite effect of job losses in the UK, as firms set up larger call centres abroad to cope. Some might even scrap phone lines altogether, forcing customers to use live chat instead. Halfon may have more success with another problem he correctly highlights, which is companies “burying their telephone numbers on obscure pages of their websites to deter customers from calling for help”. We think Ofcom should force broadband firms to show these prominently on their home pages. At least you’ll then know which number to call, even if you still have to wait far too long to get through. The Facts • Conservative MP Robert Halfon has proposed a bill to force utility firms such as broadband companies to answer phone calls from customers within 10 minutes • Virgin Media customers have to wait longest on average – 3 minutes 45 seconds • A new law in Spain fines large companies if they don’t answer calls within three minutes