Very poor service AND uninformed call center staff

I've called through to Standard Bank on ***on several occassions. The waiting time to speak to a consultant is absolutely atrocious. Every time I've called the call system informed me that high call volume were being experienced. Is this a ploy? Is the call center deliberately understaffed?

The staff also seem to not have the information on hand. I wanted my card number for online banking and the consultant referred me to Internet Banking (yet another long wait) instead of informing me that I would have to go in to a branch with my ID to get a new card.

Very poor experience.