TIL that a major airline's phone wait time average is over 3 hours, and I found out by living it.

I was stuck in Denver after a canceled flight last month, and after 90 minutes on hold, I got curious and looked up their official stats online (you know, the ones they have to report). Turns out their average wait time for customer service was 3 hours and 15 minutes in the last quarter. I found this buried in a government transportation report. The crazy part is, when I finally got through, the agent basically said there was nothing they could do and offered a $15 meal voucher for a 12-hour delay. It wasn't even about the voucher, it was the total lack of care after making people wait that long. Has anyone else had an experience where the official numbers for bad service were just as bad as the reality?

3 comments

3 Comments

webb.blake29d ago

Guess my three hour hold was just their way of making me part of the average.

rosel8316d ago

Yeah, hang up and call back.

patricia_kelly29d ago

Honestly, it feels like this is everywhere now. You see it with internet companies too, where they proudly show their "average" outage times are hours long, like it's just a normal fact of life we should accept. It makes you wonder if reporting the bad number is their way of making it okay.