Is it always 47 minutes to get an Ebay person to answer a phone call?

[familystuff-2013]

Ebay pretends that they are there to help....just call the number provided....but the wait time is always shown as being 47 minutes.  Are they talking out of both sides of their mouths?

[kalvin@ebay.com]

---

@familystuff-2013 wrote:

Ebay pretends that they are there to help....just call the number provided....but the wait time is always shown as being 47 minutes.  Are they talking out of both sides of their mouths?

---

Hi familystuff-2013,

Sorry for the long wait - we are looking at implementing a 'Call Me Back' feature - hopefully that'll make its way to everyone soon. Thanks for your patience on this.

[pierrelebel]

"we are looking at implementing a 'Call Me Back' feature "

That is a good idea although expensive for eBay.

In addition to telephone service, would it not make sense for eBay to offer email or messaging service where timing is less intrusive?

In most instance, the need for assistance is not urgent.  A delay of an hour or two would work fine.  Many users do not have access to telephone and would prefer to send their question/inquiry and expect a reply within a few hours (*). Many users also prefer using email/messaging to telephone for a variety of reasons including English as a second language. I would think the addition of email/messaging service would be cost effective for eBay and add a level of convenience for users.

If users need urgent help, they could always use the telephone.

If you look around the world of ecommerce, you will find most sites around the world offer both telephone and email support.

(*) A few hours mean just that - not 48 hours as once used by eBay.

[pocomocomputing]

I just had a good experience with Customer Service and used the Call Me Back service yesterday.

I had an issue with a $1 Gallery Plus charge on an auction listing from the Promo where it was free and I had relisted as Fixed Price and forgot to remove the Gallery Plus using Bulk Edit to relist. I went to the customer service page and found my proper place in the menus and was offered a choice of a phone number to call showing a wait of 7 minutes or a call back option. I choose Call Back and entered the phone number to reach me. About 7 minutes later I got a call and after some questions to verify me, I explained my listing mistake and got the one time credit processed immediately and it showed in my ebay account. total time on the phone was 10 minutes. Total time with setting up the call back, the 7 minute wait, the time on the phone with the rep was 20 minutes overall.

I was impressed. I called yesterday at 5-6 PM Pacific Time (8-9 Eastern Time).

I rarely call eBay, maybe 3-4times total in 5 years. I did use the ebay Chat and email a few times when it existed instead of calling. EMail took the least amount of my time and I almost always got a response in a couple of days (non-urgent matters).

PS I called about the $1 because it really made me mad that I got caught on the forgetting the removal of the promo option. But I haven't paid an insertion fee or extra feature fee in a long time since the free listing started a few years ago.