In the age of instant gratification, even my kettle’s performance is judged by how many seconds it takes to boil water. And yet, some big corporations treat their customers with utter disrespect. They completely ignore the world’s accepted timing standards in digital communication, forcing people to wait days for a reply to a simple email enquiry! 

Case 1: T-Mobile

I sent an email to T-Mobile using their online contact form and soon after, I received the following automated reply, informing me that they will do their best to reply to me in 5 (that is FIVE) days!!! And it seems that they call you first before they email you!

“Thanks for taking the time to contact us.

Due to the popularity of this service, we’re receiving high volumes of emails at the moment. We’ll do our best to reply to your enquiry within 5 days.

We’ll try and call you before replying by email and we’ll need to ask you some security questions before talking about your enquiry.

Our common questions and answers page may help you with any enquiry you may have. You can find this at www.t-mobile.co.uk/topquestions.

Please note this message is a system generated acknowledgement to your email. Please do not reply to this.”  

Case 2: London Borough of Southwark

Identical story to the one above, but wait… this time I might have to wait 10 (that is TEN) days!!! Beggars belief really!

“Thank you for your email, this is an automatic response.
Due to the popularity of this service we are not able to deal with your enquiry immediately.
A response will be issued as quickly as possible within the next ten working days.
Thank you for using this service.”