Related to this, I've had to call an airline and get told the queue is too long and to try calling back later. I have no idea who thought that was a good idea to implement because the queue will always be super long.

> Related to this, I've had to call an airline and get told the queue is too long and to try calling back later. I have no idea who thought that was a good idea to implement because the queue will always be super long.

It's 100% internal metrics.

When I was in the military, there was some metric that the clinic was graded on - I think it was number of days between when an appointment was made and when the visit happened. So the clinics just didn't allow unimportant people to make appointments more than 2 weeks out.

I’m happy enough if they just straight up say you’ll be waiting a while, and to press a button to get a call back when you reach the top of the queue.

Can get on with life until they ring you back then.

the best is when the queue is too long and they let you opt-in to being called back when it's your turn.

> get told the queue is too long and to try calling back later. I have no idea who thought that was a good idea to implement because the queue will always be super long.

A call deferred is a call denied.

Convincing the customer to give up is one way to reduce workload.

See also: automated systems that play a prerecorded message along the lines of "we're currently experiencing higher than normal call volume" regardless of how long wait times even are.