Customer service in a poor light

Hanging on the line for Electric Ireland

Sir, – On Friday afternoon last I was 144th in a telephone queue trying to get through to Electric Ireland. I needed to simply close my electricity account and pay the amount outstanding. After an hour and a quarter, the account was successfully closed. However I was advised that to clear the bill, only online payment was acceptable. This morning after several aborted attempts to pay online, I entered into another, this time, online chat queue and was placed in position 23.

When I finally got through about 40 minutes later, I was told that Electric Ireland was for some time experiencing technical problems that I needed to try later or pay the amount outstanding over the phone.

You can well understand my exasperation! Surely the customer deserves better service than this. – Yours, etc,

SUZANNE CAHILL,

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Sandymount,

Dublin 4.