Hold time for customer service representative

Hiring more customer service representatives would cost the company
more money. They cannot pay the employees less, their fixed costs are
set in stone and their variables probably go up. The cost of paying
those extra employees (assuming a living wage and benefits - which, no
doubt, the OP would expect in his own job) would then fall upon the
consumer.

I know customer service representatives who answer calls and have
learned that most calls take far longer than they need to because of
customers who extend the length of the call unnecessarily by:

A) Attempting to socialize with the representative. This runs the
gamut from telling them jokes to grilling them about their political
or religious affiliation to trying to discuss their personal problems
with the employee.

B) Being unprepared. Calling specifically to order or pay, but not
have the order prepared or the credit card handy. Not being able to
provide basic information that would help the representative locate
their specific account (or worse, being unwilling to help the
representative locate the account by assuming that every business they
call should know automatically who is contacting them) is another
irritant.

C) Continuing on after the problem has been fixed or addressed. This
is a huge complaint as I understand it. People will go on and on
about the problem for several minutes after the CSR has fixed it or
continue to explain what they want after the CSR has granted their
request.

It would seem then that the ones that can be blamed for the long wait
times are often the customers themselves. When I worked in a fast
food restaurant in college, customers would often slow the line down
by being unprepared to place or pay for their order or by trying to
make small talk. (I would imagine those who work in retail could
probably say the same thing about customers who complain the loudest
about the length of time in the checkout lane being the ones who tend
to contribute to the wait)

While a long wait is frustrating, look at it this way: The CSRs are
not rushing their customers through the call. After all, I'm sure the
OP would not want to be rushed through his just so that someone after
him can be helped faster.

Maybe the waits wouldn't really be that long but people who spend over
$6,000 a year are jumping the queue.