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A comment on The strength of a monopoly can be guessed at by calling customer support. Parent comment

Re:The strength of a monopoly can be guessed at by calling c... by nostromo on Sunday September 16, 2018 @05:57PM (#18001392)
Cool anecdote, but actual data shows how horrific their wait times are: usually between an hour and an hour and a half:

https://blog.callenq.com/irs-hold-times-disconnect-data-10k/

And that's if you're lucky enough to get to talk to someone. One third of calls are summarily disconnected.

> Our study showed that 1 out of 3 calls to the IRS Collections Line for Businesses would be disconnected, with this sometimes occurring after 2 hours of waiting.

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Re:The strength of a monopoly can be guessed at by calling c... by furgooswft13 on Sunday September 16, 2018 @10:50PM (#18002808)
> One third of calls are summarily disconnected.

The disconnects are the worst part of so-called customer support because I know it is likely to happen especially as the hold time goes on. Worse when you call back they've somehow lost all the information you previously gave them 3 times over.

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Re:The strength of a monopoly can be guessed at by calling c... by rtkwe on Sunday September 16, 2018 @11:40PM (#18003032)
Blame dumb call center metrics, intentional disconnects like that keep the average wait time down which allows bad call centers to look better in reports.
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Re:The strength of a monopoly can be guessed at by calling c... by aoeusnth1 on Monday September 17, 2018 @11:04AM (#18006566)
A better metric would include all subsequent wait times:

Adjusted wait time = avg(wait_time) / (1 - p_disconnect)

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Re:The strength of a monopoly can be guessed at by calling c... by rtkwe on Monday September 17, 2018 @01:49PM (#18008141)
I can see why they wouldn't want to include all disconnects in their adjusted wait time because that'd include everyone who disconnects accidentally and disconnects because they figured it out some other way.
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Re:The strength of a monopoly can be guessed at by calling c... by EdwardDiego on Sunday September 16, 2018 @07:28PM (#18001888)
Our taxation department lets you schedule an automatic callback when you reach the head of the queue if the wait time is likely to exceed 5 minutes.
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Re:The strength of a monopoly can be guessed at by calling c... by craftyguy on Monday September 17, 2018 @01:25AM (#18003431)
I've seen this with some financial institutions I am a customer of. It's an incredibly great practice that very few folks in the US deploy.
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Re:The strength of a monopoly can be guessed at by calling c... by dredmorbius on Sunday September 16, 2018 @06:40PM (#18001649)
And who sets that budget?
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