Do you hate being placed on hold when speaking up on the phone?
When a company puts you on hold while on the phone, they can usually still hear you. Be careful what you say to others around you when you have been put on hold, as calls are almost always recorded. Is it rude to put someone on hold if it's not a business call? “Your call is important to us… please hold”.
Is there any more unsettling recorded statement to hear in modern life. Because you know you are going to be kept in suspended animation, to the accompaniment of puerile muzak. And you wait and wait and wait and wait… and then they might disconnect you. Or in the case of airlines you might be on hold for over an hour, only to discover that the email you wrote demanding a refund is still in their system and there are such post-Covid staff shortages etc etc. I have been put on hold for another, only to then be cut off and find myself having to go back to the beginning of the queue.
I also hate the fact that, so often when dealing with an airline or a corporation, you find yourself being steered away from actual people and into a netherworld of automated automatons. It’s a bit like the amazon Alexa – who finds you that Swiss jazz station I’ve been looking for and calls me Douglas and tells me the time and the weather and is happy to book a wake-up call for me etc.
I miss dealing with people. Just as I also hate automated queues.
Corporations are gradually getting rid of people they have to pay. Just as universities – now run by business people – want to end tenure and use lower priced adjuncts. Just as the bottom line underscores everything nowadays. If you are on hold, don't keep calling. Wait your turn.
Usually I work alone at the front desk which definitely creates some problems when I can rack up 8 phone calls at once while trying to check people in. This has happened multiple times but some are more extreme than others. One time I was checking in guests and this regular (horrid guest, lots of tales about that for another time) whose name every staff member at the hotel knows because she is absolutely awful. I saw her name pop up on our caller ID and I asked to put her on hold. She then proceeded to not only bombard me with more calls the second I put her on hold but she then decided to use FOUR different phones all under her name to bombard me with more calls. I kept having to pause what I was doing with the guest. The time it took me to deal with the calls and the excessive loud ringing I could've finished up with the guest in two minutes. Instead it took 10 minutes. Eventually when I did get a chance to pick up the call, the guest was just calling (more like screaming now that I think of it) to tell me that it was my fault she couldn't call the doctor yet because she needed to cancel a reservation. Apparently she was bleeding out a lot but needed to cancel a reservation that was two months away. And she refused to call the doctor until she cancelled the reservation. We give all our guests the ability to cancel as long as we are given a 24 hour notice before the reservation. Also, I know she was already aware of this as she has asked me in the past. Another time this lady kept calling and calling. I was on the phone with a guest already and had four other phone calls on hold. This lady decided she was much more important. She would hang up and call back the second I put her on hold. I eventually told her we would take her call in the order we received it. She ended up screaming that I was taking too long (this was 2 minutes into her being put on hold). I don't like to reward people for awful behavior and so I just told her my policy. You will be helped in the order you call. She ended up calling a total of 19 times while I was helping other guests. Eventually when I did get to her she hung up on me and called customer service. We are privately owned so they really couldn't do anything to us. But when the customer service rep tried to transfer her over apparently he took too long (he was talking to me for a good 30 seconds) and she hung up on him and called their line again for a different Rep. Lesson learned: Calling lots of times regardless without/with different phone does not change what order you called in. In fact, most of the time someone will have called in after you hung up and you will be behind them. I want to help you with the problem, I just am the only one working. Lady decided that calling to cancel her reservation two months in advance was more important than the fact that she was bleeding out. And lady calls a total of 19 times in a row and tries to report me to customer service for putting her on hold. I see it all the time. Someone will be talking on their phone, with it on speaker, but continuously holding the bottom of the phone near their mouth to talk, then moving it up to their ear to listen. Do they not know that if they turn it off of speaker they can just press it flat against the side of their face and talk AND listen at the same time?
I work for a phone company and often we ask them to wait and mute ourself to ask for assistance and such. Why people should know this is because often mistake it for the phone call being on hold and say things they would otherwise not say.
Not only would they not have to continuously move their phone, but everyone else wouldn’t have to listen to both sides of their conversation as well. When being put on hold over the phone, silence it better then awfully recorded elevator music. I’ve seen this a lot lately while shopping or walking around downtown. Instead of holding the phone to their ear they have it about 6 inches from the front of their face and talk loudly while walking down the aisle/street and barring a speaker being broken on their phone I can’t for the life of my figure out why someone would want to do this. It looks incredibly uncomfortable to have your arm held out in front of you like that.
Not sure why every phone service has to have some kind of music that translates terribly and statically over the phone. You can’t mute it either because you’re waiting for the customer service rep to say something. The sound quality is always terrible and fluctuates in volume. I’d much prefer to wait in peaceful silence.
Is there any more unsettling recorded statement to hear in modern life. Because you know you are going to be kept in suspended animation, to the accompaniment of puerile muzak. And you wait and wait and wait and wait… and then they might disconnect you. Or in the case of airlines you might be on hold for over an hour, only to discover that the email you wrote demanding a refund is still in their system and there are such post-Covid staff shortages etc etc. I have been put on hold for another, only to then be cut off and find myself having to go back to the beginning of the queue.
I also hate the fact that, so often when dealing with an airline or a corporation, you find yourself being steered away from actual people and into a netherworld of automated automatons. It’s a bit like the amazon Alexa – who finds you that Swiss jazz station I’ve been looking for and calls me Douglas and tells me the time and the weather and is happy to book a wake-up call for me etc.
I miss dealing with people. Just as I also hate automated queues.
Corporations are gradually getting rid of people they have to pay. Just as universities – now run by business people – want to end tenure and use lower priced adjuncts. Just as the bottom line underscores everything nowadays. If you are on hold, don't keep calling. Wait your turn.
Usually I work alone at the front desk which definitely creates some problems when I can rack up 8 phone calls at once while trying to check people in. This has happened multiple times but some are more extreme than others. One time I was checking in guests and this regular (horrid guest, lots of tales about that for another time) whose name every staff member at the hotel knows because she is absolutely awful. I saw her name pop up on our caller ID and I asked to put her on hold. She then proceeded to not only bombard me with more calls the second I put her on hold but she then decided to use FOUR different phones all under her name to bombard me with more calls. I kept having to pause what I was doing with the guest. The time it took me to deal with the calls and the excessive loud ringing I could've finished up with the guest in two minutes. Instead it took 10 minutes. Eventually when I did get a chance to pick up the call, the guest was just calling (more like screaming now that I think of it) to tell me that it was my fault she couldn't call the doctor yet because she needed to cancel a reservation. Apparently she was bleeding out a lot but needed to cancel a reservation that was two months away. And she refused to call the doctor until she cancelled the reservation. We give all our guests the ability to cancel as long as we are given a 24 hour notice before the reservation. Also, I know she was already aware of this as she has asked me in the past. Another time this lady kept calling and calling. I was on the phone with a guest already and had four other phone calls on hold. This lady decided she was much more important. She would hang up and call back the second I put her on hold. I eventually told her we would take her call in the order we received it. She ended up screaming that I was taking too long (this was 2 minutes into her being put on hold). I don't like to reward people for awful behavior and so I just told her my policy. You will be helped in the order you call. She ended up calling a total of 19 times while I was helping other guests. Eventually when I did get to her she hung up on me and called customer service. We are privately owned so they really couldn't do anything to us. But when the customer service rep tried to transfer her over apparently he took too long (he was talking to me for a good 30 seconds) and she hung up on him and called their line again for a different Rep. Lesson learned: Calling lots of times regardless without/with different phone does not change what order you called in. In fact, most of the time someone will have called in after you hung up and you will be behind them. I want to help you with the problem, I just am the only one working. Lady decided that calling to cancel her reservation two months in advance was more important than the fact that she was bleeding out. And lady calls a total of 19 times in a row and tries to report me to customer service for putting her on hold. I see it all the time. Someone will be talking on their phone, with it on speaker, but continuously holding the bottom of the phone near their mouth to talk, then moving it up to their ear to listen. Do they not know that if they turn it off of speaker they can just press it flat against the side of their face and talk AND listen at the same time?
I work for a phone company and often we ask them to wait and mute ourself to ask for assistance and such. Why people should know this is because often mistake it for the phone call being on hold and say things they would otherwise not say.
Not only would they not have to continuously move their phone, but everyone else wouldn’t have to listen to both sides of their conversation as well. When being put on hold over the phone, silence it better then awfully recorded elevator music. I’ve seen this a lot lately while shopping or walking around downtown. Instead of holding the phone to their ear they have it about 6 inches from the front of their face and talk loudly while walking down the aisle/street and barring a speaker being broken on their phone I can’t for the life of my figure out why someone would want to do this. It looks incredibly uncomfortable to have your arm held out in front of you like that.
Not sure why every phone service has to have some kind of music that translates terribly and statically over the phone. You can’t mute it either because you’re waiting for the customer service rep to say something. The sound quality is always terrible and fluctuates in volume. I’d much prefer to wait in peaceful silence.
