underwrites Vauxhall Insurance and Tesco Insurance amongst others. I have written previously to them about 0870 numbers, and their reply just (supposedly) justifies their use by saying that they "operate within a large call centre environment, which is spread across various offices in various regions."
I do not accept this, so I wrote again. This is the reply I received:
Thank you for your letter dated 10 December 2004, regarding your letter about the subject of the 0870 numbers.
At Vauxhall Insurance we are committed to providing the highest possible standards of customer service. As a result, we take any expression of dissatisfaction from our customers seriously.
As previously stated in our letter Vauxhall Insurance operates within a large call centre environment and we are unable to operate under geographical telephone numbers. By using the 0870 numbers, when our policyholders call us they are able to go through to the first available operator, therefore, our policyholders are not kept on hold for too long. As you can appreciate, as we operate under the UKI Partnerships we are a very busy company and we do not wish to keep our clients waiting for us to deal with their queries.
From BT landlines premium rate services are charged at the following rates, shown at pence per minute, (inc VAT)
| | Daytime | Evening | Weekend |
| 0845 | 3.00 | 1.00 | 1.00 |
| 0870 | 7.51 | 3.75 | 1.50 |
While we appreciate that the 0845 numbers are cheaper they do not offer us the same benefits as 0870 numbers and these are outlined above.
However, as stated in our previous letter we can, in some cases, provide you with a direct contact number for the advisers dealing with your claim. We provided you with this at the end of our previous letter.
I trust that we have concluded this matter to your satisfaction and, in line with our complaints procedure...
Although it doesn't say in this letter, I have been informed by phone that this has been all the way to the top.
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Reply from UK Insurance(Vauxhall/Tesco and others) (Read 10,470 times)
