Everyone who has telephoned a customer service department will have been greeted with the automated "sorry we are experiencing unusually high call volumes" message at one point or another.
Your heart sinks, you do some huffing and puffing, and then you try to make peace with the fact that you’re probably going to have to spend anywhere between 30 seconds and two hours listening to the same 'relaxing’ tune over and over again.
And somewhere during this waiting period, you may well even begin to question whether that calm, soothing automated voice is really telling the truth. Is this company genuinely experiencing unusually high call volumes? Or is it lying to me?
This was certainly the case for Martin Lewis, owner of the consumer help site, moneysavingexpert.com.
In a recent post on X, Lewis called upon his followers to report any examples of the "sorry we are experiencing unusually high call volume" message being used across a range of different industries.
Please report "sorry we are experiencing unusually high call volumes" messages, we are testing if firms play this for EVERY call.
If you call a bank, broadband, mobile, credit card, energy, water, sewerage firm, pls take 30s to report it via https://t.co/uE7a5jWx9C
This is our…
— Martin Lewis (@MartinSLewis) May 23, 2025
If proven right, Lewis plans to use the data to contact the “worst offenders,” as it may mean that some companies are in breach of Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) consumer duty rules.
At the time of writing, the page on moneysavingexpert.com that tracks the reports has received over 36,000 responses.
Why Now? And Why Would They Lie?
In expounding on why he felt compelled to launch his crusade against the potentially improper use of the automated customer service message, Lewis said the following to the BBC’s Today program:
"It is my suspicion, and I can only say it is a suspicion at the moment, that this has simply become a default message. In which case, it is a lie.
Before I try and go all ‘consumer-Rambo’ on this campaign, I wanted to check the data and see whether this is a real problem or just my skewed perception (though social media responses I've had on it certainly mean if it is a skewed perception it is shared by many).
Another interesting point raised by Lewis in his X post was the idea that the unnecessary use of the automated message not only frustrates the customer but could also negatively impact the agent experience.
"It's unfair on callers, and unfair on call center workers who bear the brunt of people's frustrations," he wrote.
Indeed, handling angry customers has been a consistent issue for customer service staff, with recent research suggesting that the issue is increasing rather than decreasing.
One study showed that, in 2023, 43 percent of US customers admitted to yelling or raising their voices to express displeasure about their most serious problems, up from 35 percent in 2015.