expectation management: sometimes call volume is genuinely high, and if you set a floor at say 10 minutes it only feels like a 5 minute difference if the caller’s actual wait time is 15
engineering downtime to allow agents time to complete paperwork or catch up on emails
make us all so annoyed with the process of waiting in line we welcome AI agents as liberators
(My guess, best case scenario) Make queue times during non-busy hours more similar to the queue times during busy hours, so that there doesn’t seem to be a “better” time of day to call, hopefully spreading the call volume throughout the day and creating a more consistent wait time when calling (even if that means the experience is worse than actually necessary at times).
At least that’s probably how someone in management sold the idea.
Are you aware of the reason(s) for this? To discourage would be callers from following through?
If you can look it up yourself quickly, or just ask a person on the phone quickly, lots of people will call.
But if the phonecall is at least 15 minutes of listening to annoying my music first, looking it up yourself might seem like a better idea.
People who really need to talk to a person might be annoyed, but it won’t make them consider a competitor.
I can think of a couple
(My guess, best case scenario) Make queue times during non-busy hours more similar to the queue times during busy hours, so that there doesn’t seem to be a “better” time of day to call, hopefully spreading the call volume throughout the day and creating a more consistent wait time when calling (even if that means the experience is worse than actually necessary at times).
At least that’s probably how someone in management sold the idea.
I’m sure it’s to give you a sense of “pride and accomplishment” when you
give up and fix it yourself“adopt digital self‑solve”.