[HN Gopher] Say Goodbye to Hold Music
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Say Goodbye to Hold Music
Author : caution
Score : 114 points
Date : 2020-09-30 21:05 UTC (1 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (blog.google)
(TXT) w3m dump (blog.google)
| throwaways885 wrote:
| Hah, put the bank on hold for a change. Hope this takes off.
| reaperducer wrote:
| IVRs, and hold music are proof that "Your call is important to
| us" is a load of horse hockey.
| rkwasny wrote:
| Solving real life problems with AI :)
|
| Couldn't we solve it with a form on the website + callback?
| pvarangot wrote:
| I never had good experiences with callbacks. Sometimes they
| never call back, and I end up calling again days later and
| talking to a human, or sometimes I get random callbacks where
| no one is on the other end of the line.
| paxys wrote:
| "We" (the customers/Google) cannot solve it that way, only the
| service provider can.
| deeg wrote:
| With hands-free phones I never felt like I was wasting my time on
| hold. However, this might save my sanity by not making me listen
| to the awful music over and over.
| xnx wrote:
| Probably more than half the companies I've been on hold with
| interrupt their hold music with periodic recorded voice
| announcements (e.g. music music "Try our new flavor of
| Ovaltine!" music music). Event with a hands-free phone, this is
| probably the worst possible hold experience.
| ortusdux wrote:
| I wonder if this service can handle these messages. I have
| had holds where an automated voice would tell me the
| estimated wait time every few minutes. Can google's system
| differentiate between a customer service rep and a series of
| unique procedurally generated messages?
| Spooky23 wrote:
| I haven't seen this in ages, but I remember Microsoft had a
| radio like DJ on their on hold queue.
| bitwize wrote:
| >Event with a hands-free phone, this is probably the worst
| possible hold experience.
|
| And yet they also want you to believe "Your call is very
| important to us!"
| ryandrake wrote:
| I recall an even more evil example (I forget the company)
| where they'd interrupt the music, have this sound effect that
| sounded like someone was picking up a phone or breathing into
| it, and then instead of a human it was one of those "Did you
| know, you can upgrade your service to the MoarPlan today!"
| irritants. The effect gave your brain just enough hope to
| yank your attention from whatever useful thing you were
| trying to do while on hold.
| Shebanator wrote:
| that is evil. geez. LMK if you remember the company, I'll
| get them tested. (I work on Hold For Me)
| JohnTHaller wrote:
| _hold music at 14.5kbps quality_ "we're experiencing higher
| than normal call volumes, please stay on the line" _hold
| music at 14.5kbps quality_ (repeat)
| mikestew wrote:
| You forgot to preface with the new excuse: "Due to
| COVID-19..."
| joegibbs wrote:
| My hypothesis is that the horrendous music is on purpose, as a
| way to get you to hang up and stop bothering them. Sure, the
| 2-hour wait times could just be because they're too cheap to
| hire enough staff but what reason could there be to make the
| music so bad?
| Wowfunhappy wrote:
| More often than not, when someone takes you off from hold they
| expect an answer right away, and will hang up on you if there's
| no response. I've had this happen in cases where I put myself on
| mute and couldn't hit the un-mute button fast enough.
|
| So I'm not sure how well this would work in practice. At minimum,
| I would be anxious the whole time I was waiting, ready to hit the
| return to call button at a moment's notice...
| benmller313 wrote:
| Call centers are going to have to become more accommodating
| about this. If they make customers wait for hours but can't
| wait seconds for someone to get on the line, they should be
| considered effectively unreachable by phone.
| VectorLock wrote:
| I thought the exact same thing as well, I assume that the
| program will annunciate a message when it detects someone on
| hold, like to does with their Screen Call feature (which I
| love)
| nom wrote:
| I hope this google assistant will start talking to them while
| it waits for you to notice the notification, essentially
| putting them on hold until you answer.
|
| Didn't look into it so no idea how it behaves, but sounds like
| a realistic solution to this problem and would have very
| interesting consequences!
| javajosh wrote:
| I feel so cynical today, but I can't help but wonder how much
| voice data the Goog is charging for this service.
| advisedwang wrote:
| The article says "To determine when a representative is on the
| line, audio is processed entirely on your device and does not
| require a Wi-Fi or data connection". So presumably it uses no
| move minutes/data than would be used by waiting on hold for
| real.
| renewiltord wrote:
| I was on the fence for the pre-order. This did it. Pre-ordered.
|
| But right after I ordered, I'm now struck with wondering if the
| Fi version I ordered is the same as the one from the Play Store.
| I hope it's International. That's why I use Fi.
| Shebanator wrote:
| For the Pixel 5, I believe I read that the hardware is the same
| everywhere (although verizon and some other carriers may have
| the phone carrier-locked, at least temporarily).
|
| The 4a 5G does have a different version for Verizon.
|
| Disclaimer: I work for google, but have no direct knowledge of
| these sorts of hardware details. This is based purely on what I
| read in the press.
| renewiltord wrote:
| Much appreciated! Thank you!
| thirtythree wrote:
| Good idea but I have been on hold a handful of times in the last
| 10 years.. I guess I am not the target audience.
| bradlys wrote:
| That seems like an unusually small amount of times for _10
| years_. I could understand in a year but 10 is - wow - you must
| 've gone out of your way to avoid being on hold.
|
| I've been on hold a lot more often than a handful in the last
| decade and I don't make many phone calls. IRS, companies that
| messed up an order, cancelling services, government agencies,
| various small businesses that I call locally, and so much more
| that I am sure I am forgetting. Sometimes it's only 30 seconds
| of being on hold. Sometimes it's literally hours and - sadly -
| the connection gets cut off and I lose my place in line and I
| wasted a bunch of time having to listen to that noise in the
| background and unable to do much of anything else because of
| it.
|
| The worst offenders are those that crank the music volume so
| high that it clips practically all the time - but then there
| are long times of silence or low audio - and then the music
| comes back clipping again... AND then when you finally connect,
| the person is so quiet that you can't hear them at all and they
| say, "hello? hello? bye" and they hang up.
|
| I hope Apple gets this feature soon as I've been dying for this
| when I have to call some of those pesky places!
| paxys wrote:
| I have been on long holds multiple times this past week.
| sdenton4 wrote:
| In the new world, signing up for anything is instantaneous, but
| opting out takes hours of hold music. It's easy: if it costs
| you money, it's quick and easy. If it costs the company money,
| it will be like pulling teeth.
|
| Incorrect health insurance bill? Waste a few hours of your time
| and we'll fix it! Want to disconnect your $10/mo subscription?
| Talk to you tomorrow, so long as you don't hang up!
| adrianmonk wrote:
| Comcast was like that last I had them.
|
| Want to add a premium TV channel or upgrade your internet to
| a faster speed? Just click a button on their web site. Want
| to downgrade it back to like it was before? You can't do it
| through the web site. You must call and listen go to a sales
| pitch before they'll make the change.
| rectang wrote:
| I wish this was a top-level comment, because it's the most
| trenchant observation on this page.
|
| It applies to Google as well: human customer service costs
| Google money, so good luck getting anything fixed that their
| algorithms can't deal with.
| hanoz wrote:
| I take a Ronin approach in these matters and _never walk into
| a place I don 't know how to walk out of_. If there are any
| horror stories from would be leavers to be found online, it's
| an absolute deal breaker, no matter how attractive the
| proposition is otherwise.
| fivre wrote:
| How well will this cope with everyone's favorite idiotic
| invention, the hold feature that interrupts the hold music with a
| brief silence followed by a pre-recorded human voice saying "DID
| YOU KNOW THAT BASIC FEATURES ARE AVAILABLE ON OUR WEBSITE" every
| minute, making you think that maybe you've finally reached an
| agent, but haven't?
|
| Some support manager discovered that adding those damn
| interstitials led to a massive reduction in human interactions
| (and thus cost) from a boomer population wishing to handle all
| account management tasks by phone conversation with a person, but
| at least had some percentage who could be convinced to use a
| website for routine tasks. We've been living with the fallout
| ever since.
| ASpring wrote:
| It talks directly about this in the article. The service
| purports to know the difference between prerecorded and live
| voices
| _whiteCaps_ wrote:
| I used to work helpdesk at an ISP, and we played the local
| classic rock station as our hold music. One of my best shifts was
| when a customer I put on hold asked to be put _back_ on hold
| because they were really enjoying the songs they were playing.
| Done!
| [deleted]
| dwighttk wrote:
| If I ever used a phone I'd really like this feature.
| ohazi wrote:
| Title: "Say Goodbye to ..."
|
| Domain: blog.google
|
| I just assumed this was another Google product getting the axe.
| AcerbicZero wrote:
| I'm pretty sure eventually it will be.
| throwaway894345 wrote:
| I thought it was going to be announcing a product that plays
| ads while you're on hold.
| phkahler wrote:
| Same.
| matheusmoreira wrote:
| I thought the same thing... Looked at the domain and confirmed
| it.
| klodolph wrote:
| I think the usual title for axing something at Google is "an
| update on X". Usually means X is axed.
|
| Like, "Update on Google Wave" from 2010:
| https://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/08/update-on-google-wav...
| mattmanser wrote:
| Seeing as they're shutting down Google Play Music, I thought it
| was related to that.
| Kapura wrote:
| This was exactly my thought. Did I completely miss an entire
| Google product cycle for some sort of poorly supported spotify
| competitor? Surprisingly, no!
| cydonian_monk wrote:
| I'm not 100% sure if it was intentional, but there was a span of
| time when AT&T's customer service queue (for land lines) behaved
| like this. You'd call in, your call would be placed on hold (with
| their terrible hold music), then if you hung up it would call you
| back when an agent answered your call. I only discovered this
| behaviour because one day I was fed up with waiting, hung up the
| phone, and then an hour or so later got the call back. Repeated
| this a couple times after that call and it worked the same way. I
| have no idea if that ever worked for their cellular accounts, or
| if it was peculiar to their land lines.
| Shebanator wrote:
| It is a somewhat common feature of customer service phone
| systems to have a way to do callbacks, though I hadn't heard of
| one that did it automatically before without your consent. The
| feature costs the company using it money, since they have to
| place a second outgoing call which may have different charge
| rates than the incoming call did.
| mindslight wrote:
| Surely the incoming rates on a toll free number are higher
| than the outgoing rates for a regular call. I wish the call
| costs were large enough to move the needle - eg encourage the
| company to hire one or two more reps and eliminate the queue.
| Alas.
| syntaxing wrote:
| I might buy a pixel 5 just for this feature...I waited 30 min on
| the line for just to make a doctor appointment recently. Wait
| time are fucking absurd for some of these services since Covid,
| especially with banks and medical offices.
| MattGaiser wrote:
| Phones for booking are absurd. Phones for food ordering are
| absurd.
| bitwize wrote:
| Alternate history fiction idea: Telegraphy was expanded to
| allow individuals to make asynchronous communications without
| an intermediary. Replacing telephones, for the most part, are
| machines like an ASR-33 teletype with a receiver for voice
| calls, on which people can do things like instantly place
| orders or book travel -- in a pre-WWII setting.
| grogenaut wrote:
| Tell that to my plumber. The plumbers with nice automated
| systems still use people to pressure you. And you're paying
| for those systems and people in your bill. One of them quoted
| me $2500 for 2 faucets. The local dude did it next day for
| $350. Those ads at football games and fancy systems and
| trucks don't provide revenue or better service. So I'll deal
| with the crazy dude who's likely cutting a wall or soldering
| something talking to me on bluetooth.
|
| Also with a lot of these people, they can't really schedule,
| stuff is just a queue. This dude is definitely a queue.
| kzrdude wrote:
| As soon as you want a special order, phone for food is the
| quickest way to order. In some of my local resturants I skip
| the service fee the website adds, too, that way.
| supertrope wrote:
| The problem is that there has to be a better alternative, it
| has to be better for the businesses implementing it, and the
| switching cost has to be less than the status quo.
| phonphreak wrote:
| Why? Making a phone call removes middlemen from the process.
|
| When I order food over the phone, the only people who need to
| take a cut of the transaction are the restaurant and maybe
| the credit card company if I don't pay cash. I can also be
| confident that my tips are going to the person whose hand I
| place them in.
|
| When I order online, there are umpteen different companies
| taking my data and the restaurant's money, and they often
| obscure where fees and tips go. To me, it seems absurd to
| involve so many parties in such a simple transaction.
|
| The experience is also usually fungible. Talking to someone
| doesn't take longer or introduce more error in my experience,
| so I usually prefer it because there are less externalities
| and fewer complexities.
|
| Different strokes for different folks, I suppose.
| ksk wrote:
| Neat, a useful feature that I'd like to see on iOS too. I
| typically just put the call on speaker-phone and go about my
| work.
| gamedna wrote:
| ... and hello to forgetting why you were on the phone in the
| first place.
|
| User calls financial institution, user is put on hold, user
| invokes "goodbye to hold music" feature, user goes on with their
| life and regains time, user forgets they are on hold and goes to
| the bathroom... you can see where this is going.
| lstamour wrote:
| This isn't a new problem. Before every phone had a speakerphone
| option, it was easy to put down the handset of your landline
| phone while waiting on hold and just check in every once in
| awhile. Same is true of online chat-based support.
|
| Also you could build a feature next which asks you why you're
| calling and maybe tells the agent why you're calling before
| transferring/connecting you...
| confuseddesi wrote:
| Are there features or apps with features like this on the iPhone?
| I would like to activate them if so.
| joeskyyy wrote:
| I used LucyPhone back in the day and it was great, but sadly it
| looks like it's no longer around, would love to have something
| like this as well. FastCustomer still exists but hasn't been
| updated in over 5 years...
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(page generated 2020-09-30 23:00 UTC)