Free apps eliminate having to wait on hold

Nobody likes to sit on hold with customer no service. I recently wasted 43 minutes doing just this, so the episode is fresh in my mind! But now a couple of free apps could mean I’ll never have to wait on hold again.

If this has happened to you recently, you know how annoying it is to be in that loop where you endlessly hear, “Thank you for holding. We value your business. The next operator will be available when we say they will!”  Ironically, I was firing the company I was on hold with, so I had no compunction about doing that after holding for three-quarters of an hour!

But maybe I could have avoided the whole ordeal if I’d just followed my own advice. Several months ago, I talked about a free service called LucyPhone.com that will auto-dial customer no service and then ring you back when they pick up. LucyPhone has platforms to support both the iPhone and the Android. In addition, the service is also available for regular old telephones.

Some time ago, Consumer Reports tested LucyPhone and found that overwhelmingly it worked with just under a 90 percent success rate. They did find some problems with being left on hold when using LucyPhone to call government agencies. But that’s a topic we’ll let the political talk show hosts jump all over!

Meanwhile, Smart Money  magazine reports there’s another app called FastCustomer.com that’s also available for both Android and Apple. With FastCustomer, the free service navigates through the phone tree at 3,000 companies and call you back when a customer service rep is available to talk with you.