

Ask HN: Asynchronous customer service - swah

I'd like to know if this already exists or if this is stupid.<p>All customer services in my country operate in "Blocked IO" mode: you call them, you wait 30 minutes for someone to answer you, and sometimes they even hang-up.<p>The alternative I'm thinking is: you call, automatically your number is queued, and someone will call you back on your cellphone.<p>Apart from the calling costs, is there any other reason the latter system isn't a win-win solution?
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Travis
Both Southwest Airlines and Amazon.com do this in the U.S. They've both called
my cell phone before to do it.

With amazon, it's actually even easier. IIRC, you can click a button on the
site to queue you, and that's what gets you in the queue.

Other corporate phone tress I've called before have had a similar option.
After a given time they give you the option to leave a voicemail, and they'll
return your call.

I think the major obstacle is psychological. People don't actually believe in
their lizard brains that they won't lose their spot in line unless they're
standing there to preserve it. Even though being on hold isn't the same (after
all, it's not like you can _see_ the people in front of you, to ensure no
cutting in line), I think people interpret it the same.

That, and, async like that would probably make people feel like they're being
put off. Whereas with blocked IO, you think, "it's not that they don't care,
it's just that they're busy right now."

But I agree -- I love it. I think people's attitudes will shift towards the
system you're suggesting. It'll just take time.

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swah
Thanks. I felt this should exist somewhere already. Here, some systems say you
have an "waiting time: 10 minutes" every 10 minutes.

But what can I do with this, startup-wise? :) (It's a problem to myself also)

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seven
IBM (in Germany) did this at least some years ago.

Called the hotline, a nice computer voice told me that all lines are blocked
and that they will call me back in 12 minutes.

After 12 minutes my phone rang and a friendly lady apologised for letting me
wait and I told her about my problem.

I am still impressed.

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pierrefar
I've heard of exactly this from US and UK companies, but their names escape me
right now. And this is a biased sample because I don't read much news in other
languages.

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inerte
Calling a cellphone is pretty expensive...

But anyway, the consumer might be busy, I guess? Maybe that's a pretty big
reason, but I never worked in call centers / telemarketing.

