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Comment by baddox | Hacker News Reader

Do you play an automated message when the tech comes on the phone? How many phone service technicians will actually sit there and wait to be connected to the actual user?

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Yep. Most customer service folks don't mind waiting (they hear a phone ringing while we get you on the line) and they end up talking to happier customers, who are also much less likely to switch to another company than someone who's just been sitting on hold for 20 mins.

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.

If true, you could pretty easily take down a call center simply by calling up and leaving the lines open with no caller. Managers would need to be running all over the place.

Since call center employees commonly have the ability to perform call transfers, I can only imagine they have the ability to hang up on calls. Otherwise, I imagine they could simply transfer the call to an invalid extension to "hangup".

We seem to get a lot of hang-ups from customer service people. You wait 20 mins, to speak to them, you ask them something that's not going to be on their first script page, they ask you to wait and hang up. Or you wait for them and then need a few seconds to grab a pen "please hold" put them on hold for 10 seconds, retrieve the call and it's dead.

The other good one is cancelling a contract where they ask you to wait and simply keep your line open and don't let you make any calls for the next 20 mins ... always a joy. AFAIK there's no way on our phone system to force an incoming call to terminate.

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