Netflix Suspending Phone Call Customer Service Amid Coronavirus Crisis

While most of the world has slowed to a halt during the coronavirus crisis, business at Netflix [...]

While most of the world has slowed to a halt during the coronavirus crisis, business at Netflix has actually been speeding up. People have been stuck inside their homes for extended periods of time, and that has let to a major usage boom for Netflix, as well as other streaming services. Of course, with more usage comes more problems, which leads to an overwhelming number of help requests. Since Netflix customer service representatives are people stuck in the same situation as the rest of us, the company is making the job easier for them to accomplish and suspending the phone lines.

As of now, the Netflix customer support phones are no longer available. The representatives are still working, however, so anyone with questions will be able to ask them through live chat and the online Help Center. To announce the news, Netflix released a statement in the help section of its website.

"The COVID-19 crisis has meant that thousands of our customer support agents are unable to work, or are now having to work from home. So our wait times are higher than normal. We're working hard to provide the best support we can under the circumstances, and apologize for the delays you are experiencing," reads the statement from Netflix. "We're now offering live chat and online Help Center support only globally. Shifting to chat instead of phone support allows our agents to help more people while working from home. We know this is less convenient for some members, but we will be able to help more people more quickly this way. Given the shortage of agents, we're also having to reduce our support hours. This will vary depending on the country you're in - and as we experiment with what works best given the current crisis."

Customers around the world had been experiencing longer-than-usual wait times when calling Netflix for help, as there were so many incoming calls and messages for the reps to try and deal with. Hopefully this pivot to online only service will help users get answers more quickly and will lighten the load for the employees.

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