I HATE Waiting on Hold

I know it almost goes without saying that everyone hates waiting on hold. The dreaded ding ding dong of the scratchy hold music makes most people incredibly annoyed. I'm sure we've all been there, waiting on hold with a shipping company, airline, passport office, or somewhere else with terribly long hold times.

The reason this even comes to mind at all is because I was trying to get through to my internet and cable provider yesterday after work. I won't name names, but they are one of big home services provider in Canada. Like many of the large service providers, this company boasts about their "after hours" service, which is just having service available after 5:00 PM. 

Given that I started writing this article first thing in the morning, how long do you think I was on hold? 30 minutes feels like a lot, but I could see that being a reasonable hold time if it's busy. An hour is starting to get a little bit excessive, but I understand that it's the Thursday before the holiday so I can be patient. 2 hours is the mark that I start to get annoyed. 3 hours is where I started contemplating my life's decisions, I could have watched an entire Lord of the Rings movie in the amount of time I was sat on hold. 4 hours is the mark that it was almost becoming a game, I was convinced the service team had just gone home for the evening and were messing with me. Finally, at 4 hours and 22 minutes, some poor unsuspecting service agent picks up the phone.

I do feel bad for customer service representatives. A great deal of their job is dealing with people who are angry and frustrated, and they get those emotions taken out on them. Knowing this, I did my best to try and keep my cool. The service agent very politely asked how I was doing, and I did my best to inform them that I was not very happy for two reasons. One, the actual reason I had called in the first place, and two, because I just spent almost 4 1/2 hours on hold. 

The service representative apologized quite a bit, and sounded almost frustrated at the inaction of their organization. They then told me the last thing I wanted to hear... The department that handled the matter I needed taken care of was shut down for the evening. The representative informed me that around the 3 1/2 hour mark of my phone call is when they shutdown for the evening. I actually laughed out loud when they told me this. I thought to myself, this would NEVER happen at Armour. 

Armour Hates Hold as much as you do

At Armour Insurance, we hate waiting on hold as much as much as you probably do. When I got into work this morning, I checked our call logs for the week and wanted to see how long our clients were waiting to talk to an actual human being. The absolute LONGEST time any client waited to talk to someone, was 1 minute and 16 seconds. The average waiting time was 17 seconds.

Conclusion

Waiting on hold is frustrating and a big waste of time. That is why Armour takes all reasonable steps to make sure that your time is respected and valued. If you contact us during hours of operation, your call should be answered in short order. If you spend forever waiting on hold with your insurance company, why not give us a call? You'll wait an average of 17 seconds to talk to a live broker. 

PS. I did not get my issue with the cable company rectified yet. Hopefully today is the day.