The awful experience of being on hold with Amtrak

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5

5280 Guy

Train Attendant
Joined
May 23, 2019
Messages
46
They take it to a new level of suckage. Call them at 800-872-7245 and you'll be greeted with their silly and long-winded Covid announcements. Then, be prepared to wait. How long? No way to tell because there is no hold queue announcements. You'll get stuck with stale music and the endless repetition of boring announcements. One lady's voice is particularly icepick-to-the ear - really shrill and annoying. She tries to sound hip by saying "between NYC and Washington, D.C." Big fail. In between you'll hear that your call is important to them. Yeah, just not important enough to bother to answer. You might think that some executive there would hear the hold system and fix it, but of course that never happens. And the new CEO won't make any difference. Taxpayers will be showering them with more money but we will see the same incompetence.
 
Let me guess. You've not been put on hold, during the pandemic, by other companies.
I've waited at least an hour and finally hung up a few times this year at other places.
Though the "noise" on hold, be it music or talking, can be annoying, I appreciate it being there because I use bluetooth with my hearing devices and if there's no signal (noise) my hearing device will disconnect from the bluetooth device and when someone finally picks up I won't hear them and they may hang up before my devices reconnect.
 
It's me, I'm old school. I hate bad service, but it's so normal now that it's being accepted. Whatever the reason for long hold times (95 minutes as of now), there are ways to make it suck less. Long hold times are made worse when there is no indication of how long it will be, and when you have to listen to endless repetition. Surely Amtrak can afford a hold queue time status system. They could also get rid of the annoying and clichéd "your call is very important to us." And that lady's shrill voice...
 
Bob Dylan said:
Yep, I've been offered that option by Amtrak when on hold!
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So have I. Unfortunately, you may be called back real late or the next day. Both have happened to me.

They watch your house and if you gave them your home number, they call as soon as you have left. If you gave them your cell, they remotely check your battery and if it is about to die, they give you a little more time then call back. Google does the spying on you for them if you have an Android phone and knows everything about all your habits - ALL OF THEM! (Shame on you). :)
 
me_little_me said:
So have I. Unfortunately, you may be called back real late or the next day. Both have happened to me.

They watch your house and if you gave them your home number, they call as soon as you have left. If you gave them your cell, they remotely check your battery and if it is about to die, they give you a little more time then call back. Google does the spying on you for them if you have an Android phone and knows everything about all your habits - ALL OF THEM! (Shame on you). :)
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🤣
 
Palmland said:
Many companies, including some airlines, now have the option of getting a call back in x minutes. That has always worked for us. Amtrak should do this.
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I have status and my wait is usually not that long (the longest being 45 minutes so far). However, one evening I called after AGR was closed and was offered a call back, which I accepted. However, the call back was fairly late at night (which was to be expected since my initial call was certainly after 8pm). I believe I am offered a call back option every time my wait is anticipated to be more than 15 minutes, but I generally opt to hold (and multitask while waiting) or hang up and phone back if I do not need to speak to anyone immediately.
Often when I am informed that my wait will be approximately 10 minutes, it is usually less. However, I am pretty sure I waited 45 minutes when was informed my wait would be approximately 15 minutes.

(I moved last April and had to phone the cable company and the utilities company. The wait for the cable company was well over an hour and I got disconnected. The wait for the utilities was not quite as long. Amtrak was easy compared to those).
 
The waits for the regular number and regular AGR # have been really bad since the start of the pandemic and since they closed one of the calling centers. I imagine they just don't have enough staff and we know even the HR department isn't staffed enough to have the capacity to hire the staff they need. Still ridiculous IMO to have waits in excess of an hour at nearly all times of day. Surely they're turning away customers. I also agree with the noise level difference when on hold. Sometimes I leave it on speaker or use my headset and when it's quiet I can't tell if someone is there until Julie interrupts really loudly with her repeated ads for an Amtrak gift card.
 
Several thoughts. Wait times for reservations may be a way to stab LD trains. Most short distance trains are previous riders and they can navigate the web site easily. One leg short distance and NEC reservations are easily made over the web site. Not all persons of course,

Today had to update my Florida turnpike account. Called and wait was stated as 90 minutes. Was offered call back. Just reviewed and was 3 hours 31 minutes.
 
west point said:
Several thoughts. Wait times for reservations may be a way to stab LD trains. Most short distance trains are previous riders and they can navigate the web site easily. One leg short distance and NEC reservations are easily made over the web site. Not all persons of course,

Today had to update my Florida turnpike account. Called and wait was stated as 90 minutes. Was offered call back. Just reviewed and was 3 hours 31 minutes.
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🤬
 
5280 Guy said:
It's me, I'm old school. I hate bad service, but it's so normal now that it's being accepted.
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I'm with you on the exaggerated messaging and other eyerolling gibberish. It seems like every business has "recently updated our options" even if the last change was many years ago. I also agree with the need for time estimates and call-back options which were previously employed and will presumably return. Hopefully some of the funding earmarked for Amtrak will help hire more staff and reduce inbound traffic by improving the functionality of Amtrak's website and mobile apps. Calling just to choose or change compartments is absurd in 2021.
 
Amtrak is certainly not the biggest offender on this front--it's a race to the bottom I fear. This past week, my husband was on hold for an hour and a half to get customer service from a major phone provider (whose name rhymes with Horizon) and I spent nearly that long waiting to speak with a consulting nurse on my medical plan only to discover once they got me to a nurse that I was in need of immediate surgical intervention for a detaching retina. Amtrak doesn't get a pass, of course--they really need to make telephone customer service a priority. But, from where I sit, the days when you had a problem with a company that could be fixed with a quick phone call seem to start with the numbers 19...
 
flitcraft said:
Amtrak is certainly not the biggest offender on this front--it's a race to the bottom I fear. This past week, my husband was on hold for an hour and a half to get customer service from a major phone provider (whose name rhymes with Horizon) and I spent nearly that long waiting to speak with a consulting nurse on my medical plan only to discover once they got me to a nurse that I was in need of immediate surgical intervention for a detaching retina. Amtrak doesn't get a pass, of course--they really need to make telephone customer service a priority. But, from where I sit, the days when you had a problem with a company that could be fixed with a quick phone call seem to start with the numbers 19...
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Hopefully your surgery went well and your eyes are OK!( I had Emergency Surgery for a Detached Retina in Chicago while on an Amtrak trip, and 2 Cataract Surgeries. I am fortunate to still be able to still see.)
 
If you think Amtrak is bad try the Alaska Railroad or VIA for some really long holds. What sucks for me is the ARR in order to get my air crew discount and book any tour add ons I have to call them.
 
My call back was two days later - good it wasn’t two weeks later!

I don’t mind the wait for. Utilities, car rental, airlines or Amtrak.... good service is expected and unfortunately Amtrak fails at that. I’ve booked my train travel by phone with some great ticket agents. But half the time the agent lacked overall knowledge of Amtrak.

One time I argued back and forth about a special - I almost gave up .... then the agent said “oh I see it now” AMTRAK PLEASE GET BETTER PHONE BOOKING AGENTS.... or train them better!!!
 
me_little_me said:
So have I. Unfortunately, you may be called back real late or the next day. Both have happened to me.

They watch your house and if you gave them your home number, they call as soon as you have left. If you gave them your cell, they remotely check your battery and if it is about to die, they give you a little more time then call back. Google does the spying on you for them if you have an Android phone and knows everything about all your habits - ALL OF THEM! (Shame on you). :)
Click to expand...
Xfinity/Comcast pioneered the technology!
 
Tlcooper93 said:
As some have pointed out, Amtrak is offering this and has been for at least a year as far as I know.
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I had the same experience last week. And they said they would call back between 8pm and 11pm. Due to my work schedule, I can't stay up that late. So I held for an hour, spoke to someone, and was put on hold again for another 1.5 hrs. I decorated my tree......which I had been procrastinating on.....so that was time well spent. But I agree that when you keep hearing "your call is important to us", I just want to barf!
 

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