Enough With the Holding, We’re Done!!

Are you sick and tired of being on hold? Yes. Are you tired of listening to those dreaded automated voices telling you to press 1, 2, or 3? Yes. Are you tired of wasting your time day after day hour after hour when you could be doing a million other things? Yes.

Then what are we doing just sitting around waiting for nothing? There has to be a better way, we’ve come too far as a society to be stuck spending countless hours out of the year waiting on hold! We’re beyond over it, and that’s why it’s time to join the #HoldNoMore movement that’s sweeping the nation!

So what’s all the fuss about you ask? Well, to give you a little bit of history, the 1-800 number (yes we know, hearing that number brings us great pain too) was invented in 1967 by (cough cough) AT&T. You’re welcome, now you know who to thank for this atrocity.

Today, on average, 53% of Americans say that they spend 10-20 minutes on hold every week, which adds up to 13 hours annually, but in reality it seems a lot longer then that. I mean hello, we’ve all been on the phone trying to get a gadget back in working order only to be told, after endless waiting on hold, “sorry we can’t fix it” or “oh wait, let me transfer you five times”. Yes, we know the struggle is all too real and so do 86% of all customers who call businesses looking for help or information.

This… is your face on hold!

Let’s just say 100% of us are tremendously annoyed with the on hold status quo, can you tell? If not, take a look at a few of our favorite “hold faces”, and we’re sure you’ll recognize some of these exacerbate expressions!

Here are a few people (and animals) who seriously loathe being placed on hold…

From men and women to cats and dogs, everyone HATES being put on hold!

So, by joining the #HoldNoMore movement you will be demanding that companies provide an alternative to the millions of minutes we as a nation waste on hold every day. Companies spend trillions of dollars a year on call centers to provide 1-800 numbers in order to give customers a channel to contact them, however as it turns out, it’s this very channel that customers hate using. Let’s demand a better use of these dollars in order to help transform the current state of remote customer service for good.

Now it’s our job to show cooperations currently using the “on hold” method just how we want to move away from this archaic system, by using more high-tech avenues like texting, instant messages, emails, and shocker REAL PEOPLE, which are all far more popular than automated calling setups. Yet, 92% of all customer service interactions happen via an automated calling service.

With all this being said, we’ve wasted billions of minutes waiting on hold to talk to a person pressing 1,2,3 again and again. Literally we just want to talk to a real person, is that too much to ask for? Apparently it is. What’s worse is that often times, after all that waiting, you get disconnected grrrr. So, we think we can all agree that it’s time to end the 1-800 number once and for all. Who’s with us? We want you to join the #HoldNoMore movement and demand a better customer service environment.

To kick off the movement #HoldNoMore is launching a ‘Hold Face’ march to demand that companies provide alternatives to this outdated practice – either stop putting us on hold, or provide another solution. Upload a selfie with the hashtag #holdnomore to Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram and let the world see your #HoldNoMore face!

Now that we got that out of the way here’s a list of things you could be doing while NOT being on hold:

Enjoy your life! Smell some roses, hit the beach, seriously do something people!
Go to the gym! Who says summer bods are the main focus, we think winter physiques need toning too.
Play outside with the kids. How about you both put down your phones and head into the great outdoors
Learn to cook (or master your existing methods).
Go shopping aka retail cardio.
Go out to eat. Ok yes, this may negate that whole gym thing but at least you won’t be waiting on hold so brownie points for that!
Hang out with your friends… Remember those are the people you used to talk to before being put on hold all the time?!