Why don’t we have telephone support?

The short answer is we do telephone owners when it is necessary or expedient - but it seldom is.

I sometimes hear about frustrated owners who want to be able to speak to someone so I thought I'd explain my point of view.

Telephone is poor as a primary means of customer support.

Two weeks ago I spent over 40 minutes on my mobile phone trying to report that my landline was not working. I was passed from one department to another and repeatedly had to prove my identity. I was sick of their on hold music by the end of it.

Last year I had to make five calls to get through to my dentist to cancel an appointment because of travel plans.

In both cases I could have sorted it in minutes if they had email.

By contrast three weeks ago I emailed my doctor’s secretary to get clarification about a prescription and to make an appointment. It took me two minutes to write the email and within 36 hours I had a reply - there is no way I would want the consultant to answer phone calls - yet he was able to answer my question efficiently by email.

Emails allow technical questions to be answered by technically qualified people. I cannot sit on a phone line but emails can and do percolate up to me if there is something unusual or needs my attention.

So email allows the best person to answer the question rather than the first person to pick up the call.

I spent many hundreds of thousands of pounds on telephone support over the years and finally stopped in 2017. It was one of my best business decisions.

The forum is an another excellent way to get support. For a start your question or problem has almost certainly been answered before. So you can probably find the answer without posting a question.

It can feel a bit odd if you haven’t used a forum before but give it a go. It's friendly and some of the senior forum members know more about Brennan products than I do.

From a business and personal point of view a forum allows me to answer a question once and the answer is available forever to everybody. Whereas if I answered by telephone or email - I'd have to answer the question over and over.

Martin Brennan