Please hold

Thanks to call centres the British people are a lot like Debbie Harry’s Blondie: ‘Hanging on the Telephone’.

According to a recent report, we typically waste around 45 hours each year waiting to be connected to a call centre representative.

This won’t be surprising to students of Behavioural Economics who know that – rather counter intuitively – people are more willing to hold on longer if told all lines are busy compared with being promised that their call will be answered soon. Why? The notion of having freely available operators suggests an unpopular service that is consequently not worth holding for. Whereas a message saying that all lines are busy and requesting people to hold or ring back later encourages them to stay holding in the queue longer as it suggests a popular service worth waiting for.

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