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Comment by crazygringo | Hacker News Reader

This is AWESOME and I can't wait for Apple to hopefully build their own version as well.

But at the same time, I can't help but wonder if representatives will actually stay on the line to wait for you.

If you're accidentally on mute or they don't hear you, sometimes they'll hang up very quickly, within just a few seconds. (Not always though.)

I hope that because it'll play a message for them instructing them to wait for you, they'll wait... but I also assume they'll set an internal policy on how long they're allowed to. Will it be 30 seconds? 15 seconds? 60 seconds?

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Maybe Google could record your real voice saying "uhhh can you hear me? hold on how about now? yes i can hear you" or some random garbage filler words like that, and play that to the customer service rep while the phone gets your attention to get back to the phone. Hopefully you'll be back just in time before your pre-recorded fluff finishes playing.

Or they could just play Lenny.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vWrkDOt_IfM&ab_channel=Toao....

This is hilarious, I wonder if there is a Twilio implementation ... I'd love to redirect all unknown callers to it.

Phone tree systems are such a jumbled mess of garbage, that I wouldn't doubt the agent wouldn't know whether the please wait message came from their own system of from the customer's side.

If you read further down, it makes this clear:

> 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 return to the call.

i hope they play hold music while they wait for you!

Yeah, they'll probably play an ad. The one from etoro, with Alec Baldwin.

It's like when the US President calls you. Someone else calls you and when you answer you get a "Please hold for the President".

Not anymore apparently! Trump just calls up directly whoever he feels like venting to. Woodward mentioned once Trump randomly called his house phone while he was working on the lawn or something and his wife had to go get him while the president waited on the line.

I first thought Trump called his own house number while Trump was on the lawn, and Trumps wife had to get Trump while Trump waited on the line.

Wouldn't be out of character a bit.

When does the US President call you?

when your name is Putin

When you done messed up

https://nypost.com/2020/07/02/president-trump-calls-family-o...

Yes, that's what I said, if you "read further down" in my comment (see the word "because"). My concern is whether the representative will actually hold.

Only one way to find out, home skillet!

> sometimes they'll hang up very quickly,

That's what I was thinking; here all these services let you wait for 20-40minutes and then they hang up if you don't IMMEDIATELY answer when they say; 'hello sir???????'.

I guesss we'll see if that message works or not... I guess it'll take a lot of tweaking per country and even regions of the country. Where I live they typically don't wait even if you don't speak the accent; they act like they cannot hear you and hang up.

Just describe your problem to Google AI and it would ask all relevant information by itself.

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