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> Once a representative is identified, Google Assistant will notify you that someone’s ready to talk and ask the representative to hold for a moment while you r

• tinus_hn 6y ago
  Obviously companies like Dell couldn’t come up with a system where you enter your phone number and you get a call as soon as an agent is available.
  • Nextgrid 6y ago
    The lack of such a feature is not a technical problem; it's misaligned incentives. The company does not want you on the phone; the annoyance of being on hold is a feature for them and not a problem that should be fixed. In a healthy market this behavior would cause the company to lose marketshare to a competitor offering better support, which is why the only companies still using call centers as their primary (and often only contact) are those in monopolized industries like telecommunications. Every other industry has moved on to better solutions (async email, chat, etc) because consumers demanded them. The real problem here is monopolies and misplaced regulation (harmful regulation that prevents competition combined with the lack of regulation that would force the incumbent to actually provide good service).
    • GekkePrutser 6y ago
      Exactly. In fact some callcenter systems have a feature called something like 'expectation management'. It can make you wait even if there are people available, just so you don't get used to the quick response and be less happy at busier times. Or to dissuade people from calling for minor issues I guess. It's often used on cheaper support tiers also to make paid support more interesting. I'm not joking, this is an actual feature. I used to build callcenters and it surprised me when I saw it in the documentation. None of our customers ever implemented this but I can imagine some would otherwise it wouldn't have been in there.
      • supertrope 6y ago
        That sounds quite customer hostile. To play devil’s advocate I’ve heard of two examples supporting that logic. Web browsers that wait for most resources before painting are perceived as faster than those that load in piecemeal. An airport got complaints about having to wait for luggage. In the next renovation they moved the baggage pickup farther away so by the time you walked over there your luggage was almost ready. Perception is reality.
        • bigiain 6y ago
          > That sounds quite customer hostile. Depends who you consider to be "the customer". I suspect for a huge number of call centres, "the customer" is the bank/telco/insurance company that's outsourced to them, and the key metrics and incentives of their relationship with that customer _totally_ make "expectation management" make sense. The call centre company has no incentive to make life better for account holder or phone users or people who's house just burnt down - beyond extrememly narrow interpretations of the responsibilities in the contract they have with their customer - which is presumably as poorly written and as easy to game as any software project requirements doc you get from those kinds of clients...
          • GekkePrutser 6y ago
            Exactly.. Outsourcing tends to bring out the worst incentives in companies. Especially because the lowest bidder wins the contract, which means the one that cuts the most corners. In the company I work for now, they tried outsourcing but moved all their support back in house because they are a market leader so keeping customers is more important to them than gaining new ones. Hence more focus on good support than agressive sales. It makes a world of difference.
        • GekkePrutser 6y ago
          It is customer hostile. Roughly speaking in terms of (inbound) callcenters there's 2 kinds of attitudes. - There's the callcenter type that actually cares about their customers and strives for the best metrics possible in terms of satisfaction (usually measured by after-call survey) and the shortest waiting time. This type of callcenter is often overstaffed to make sure they can handle peak times without pressure on the staff (which will reduce customer satisfaction because the staff will be stressed and the customers wait longer). In these callcenters it is common to see staff sitting 'idle' during which time they are supposed to do some elearning or support emails, or even kick back and relax. The metrics they care about will be customer sat ratings and waiting time (as in lower is better) - There's also the kind of callcenter that is all about productivity. These are typically outsourced and get paid per call. They tend to have the minimum staffing so they reduce staff idle time: Hours not on call are 'lost' hours to them. Staff will be managed more on calls per day/hour and handling time per call (lower is better). Less time will be available for training (if any). These are the kinds of callcenters that want features like I mentioned. For one because it dissuades customers to call for minor issues and use email support instead, which is a lot cheaper to provide per customer interaction. And also to keep distance between the 'regular' and 'premium' support tiers, to make the premium waiting times shorter. This kind of callcenter will usually want to tweak the system to generate the best statistics for the customer that outsourced to them. Obviously the first type of callcenter is much much better. Both for the customer and the employees. But the second type is very common too, especially for things that are commodity (as in easy to provide, not much knowledge needed), like number information services. The only thing worse than the second type is the outbound sales-driven callcenter which are real sweat shops. Luckily the company I worked for didn't really deal with outbound.
    • scarface74 6y ago
      There is a cost per minute while you are on hold. They definitely don’t want you on hold unless you are calling to cancel.
  • TylerE 6y ago
    It's certainly possible. Amazon, at least, has such a system.