How do you tell the difference between hold music, and a representative?
From another comment, I think they have the representative press a button to indicate availability?
Show HN: "Never wait on hold again" service built with Rails and Twilio
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Re: Show HN: "Never wait on hold again" service built with Rails and Twilio
#72REALLY Cool! How is rackspace cloud hosting? Reliable?
Re: Show HN: "Never wait on hold again" service built with Rails and Twilio
#73And if you were a forward thinking megacorp, you could build something like this yourself. "Hiya, this is Paypal. Hit 1 to talk to ... Thanks. Type in your last four digits of your... Thanks Mr. McKenzie. Would you prefer to hold while waiting for a representative, or should we call you back in approximately 15 minutes? Hit 1 to..." 15 minutes later. "Hello, is this Mr. McKenzie? Hiya, this is Steve at Paypal and I h…
Amazon does it and has for a couple years.
Re: Show HN: "Never wait on hold again" service built with Rails and Twilio
#74Earlier quoted context omitted.
Also, a lot of phone service reps are literally not able to end a call. Often, the customer has to do it.
Not too sure about that -- this would prevent phone reps from ending calls when the connection with the customer isn't functioning properly (but yet the line is still active).
Maybe it can be done with manager intervention.
Re: Show HN: "Never wait on hold again" service built with Rails and Twilio
#75Brilliant. You've probably added a few years to my life, both in terms of hours lost and frustration listening to the same 24kbps top-40 song over and over. Thanks. :)
You can tell what song is playing?!
Re: Show HN: "Never wait on hold again" service built with Rails and Twilio
#76Interesting, but this doesn't address the fundamental problem. The main reason that companies make you wait on the line is to differentiate the customers who care a lot about their problem from those who don't. By making the cost of waiting, for the customer, practically negligible, you are sidestepping this protection mechanism; your success would flood companies with less important support calls, thus giving them a powerful incentive to shut you out. At first, they'll just instruct their customer service representatives to immediately hang up on anything that sounds like your service. Next they'll ask the legal department for ammo, and do their best to implement technical counter-measures.
It's an interesting idea, but it's IMHO doomed long term, unless you find a way to take the companies' interest into account as well. For instance, in order to maintain the same system of customer disincentives you should probably charge per each minute your service is used.
Re: Show HN: "Never wait on hold again" service built with Rails and Twilio
#77And if you were a forward thinking megacorp, you could build something like this yourself. "Hiya, this is Paypal. Hit 1 to talk to ... Thanks. Type in your last four digits of your... Thanks Mr. McKenzie. Would you prefer to hold while waiting for a representative, or should we call you back in approximately 15 minutes? Hit 1 to..." 15 minutes later. "Hello, is this Mr. McKenzie? Hiya, this is Steve at Paypal and I h…
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Re: Show HN: "Never wait on hold again" service built with Rails and Twilio
#78Best thing since sliced bread.
Re: Show HN: "Never wait on hold again" service built with Rails and Twilio
#79My ISP and phone provider iiNet (Based in Australia) do this. You call and chose the broad department you want to talk to (tech, sales, or billing), and you're told how long your wait is approximately, and asks if you want a callback on the number you're calling from. Speaking from personal experience using this sort of system: It's fantastic to use and if you're successfully inserting yourself as the middleman in th…
Thanks, Australia is high on our list when we get to more countries.
Internode in Australia also do it, however they don't offer it to the caller until you've been on hold for 8 minutes. An option at the start of the call would be much better.
Re: Show HN: "Never wait on hold again" service built with Rails and Twilio
#80Definitely a great service. Wish you guys luck!