Queue Cues

"We are experiencing abnormally high call volume."  I rarely phone call centers, preferring live chat but often having to send an email to get a "timely response," typically promised in 2-3 business days. But when I do call I seemingly always have the misfortune of encountering the apparently normal abnormal call volume.  Perhaps this is due to how long it takes to navigate the menu in order to get to reach the queue (the word, fittingly, with the longest string of consecutive vowels, if memory serves me).  And when you finally do reach the proper extension, you often get to hear how long the wait will be from there.  I'm told that the software is sophisticated enough to estimate wait times fairly accurately, but I don't know that call centers are using that software, as it really seems that the wait times are often just wild guesses.  I've actually tested this by calling three times within a minute and finding the wait time estimates to vary by up to 300%.

Wait estimates have an interesting psychology.  Restaurants often slightly overestimate them, so that when you're called after waiting an hour having been told the wait is 70 minutes, you're actually happy about it.  Call centers seem to be just pulling the times out of hats, though.

I've heard that typically regardless of the menu, one can press "0" at any point to reach a person.  I've tried it a few times and it's always worked for me.