Seth Godin, author and frequently quoted in the blogosphere, has a good suggestion when it comes to putting new prospective customers on hold:

“Hi, you’ve reached us when we’re too busy. Quick, write down this code: 123×23. Now, give us your phone number. When we call back (within an hour, we promise), give us the code and we’ll pay you $20 on the spot for the hassle in getting this order processed.” The problem is that people who build call centers try to lower costs instead of increase revenues.

Man, that’s smart. I dislike hold times and lines when I’m trying to buy something. What a waste of time waiting in line or on hold. Who doesn’t?

Before anybody gets on my case about a lack of patience, just stop and think about how inefficient it is to make people wait in this day and age with technology? RFID tag the items I’m buying and let me swipe my card on the way out the door. Why do we have to put groceries into a cart, then take them out of a cart and scan them and then put them back into the cart? Besides being susceptible to human error (being charged multiple times for the same item or wrong item), it makes no sense. U-scan yourself services are a step closer, but what savings do we get for doing all the work? Nothing. People who use U-scan should get some kind of price break. They have essentially become the store’s checker (and helped to put a checker out of work, unfortunately).

Called one of the web hosting companies we’ve been trying out recently. This is one of those places that spends ridiculous amounts of money advertising how great they are taking up several full page ads in magazines. Result? Was on hold for over 30 minutes and then just gave up. I sent them an email and it took them nearly 48 hours to respond. The question was simple: do you have .NET 2.0 installed on your servers? Why they don’t put that information on their website is beyond me. If they had done so, I never would have bothered trying to call them.

As Seth points out, so much money and marketing prowess is used to send customers to the storefront and when they arrive, don’t be out of control and disorganized: be ready.

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