TCN Consumer Survey Finds Americans Overwhelmingly Prefer to Interact with a Live Person When Dealing with Customer Service Reps

Americans are willing to wait on hold, but not for long. When calling a company’s customer service department, Americans said they are willing to wait on hold for six minutes, but the actual wait time on average is three times longer. One-third (34%) said they’re willing to wait on hold between five to seven minutes, an average of six minutes overall, with women (15%) twice as likely as men (8%) to be willing to wait 10 minutes or longer. However, the average actual wait time on hold is 17.4 minutes, with 2 in 3 (62%) saying they’ve waited on hold longer than 10 minutes and nearly one-quarter (23%) saying they’ve waited on hold for 30 minutes or longer. Women are more patient -- they’re twice as likely (31%) as men (13%) to wait on hold more than 30 minutes.