I have the perfect job for someone who wants to work at home and is enormously patient. Be a “hold expert.” I know you are thinking, what is that?
First some questions…how much time do you spend on hold each day? Do you get put ‘on hold’ every day? You might if you need to make a doctor’s appointment, have a problem with your WiFi at home and need to reach the cable company or phone company, need to get a plane ticket (or worse, need to change your flight), need to get a question answered by the IRS or the local water company, need to get medical or other test results, need to get the heat and air conditioning service out to your home to fix a problem, need to check a warranty on a product that you bought that the seller said would work, need to set up a time to get your car serviced, need to ask about a credit card (or worse, need to get something fixed on your credit card bill), need help with your computer that is acting up or not acting at all (and get put on hold despite the fact you paid extra for service when you bought it), need to make an appointment for your pet with the vet, need to ……yes, go ahead, fill in the blank.
Imagine if there were a service where you could hire someone (at a reasonable rate) to sit on hold for you and as soon as that person was lucky enough to get a human to actually answer, could quickly patch you in. Think of all the time you could save.
But there is more…think of how healthy it would be since after holding for more than 10 minutes, whose blood pressure doesn’t dangerously spike? And it really spikes when you get disconnected or someone calls into your phone and you have to take that call and have to redial and get back in the endless queue. This new job could relieve you of this health hazard.
But there is more….I don’t know about you, but I like music I select. I don’t like to be put on hold only to be subjected to OPM (other peoples’ music.) I don’t make others listen to my selected music so why do I have to listen to music pre selected for me? I may have bought a product that I have a question about or that does not work, but never agreed to a song list. I didn’t buy a song list. I know, the music is to let the caller know that he or she has not been disconnected but if there were good service in the first place, who would need to have that?
And do you really believe that you are on hold because of “recent high volume of calls?” Or do you think it is because the business you are calling is too cheap to add more people to answer the phone so as to not waste your time on hold? And if you are calling about a shoddy problem or service, what does it say about the company you are calling that so many people are calling at the same time. All their products are shoddy and hence all the calls?
I don’t see service improving so the only solution is to create a new occupation: ‘hold expert.’ Any takers? As noted in the first paragraph, you must be enormously patient.
PS. The above stream of consciousness is what happens when someone is bored out of his or her skull waiting to get off hold.