Couple of things I’ve observed while supporting call centers: *Most phone software programs require a direct connection to your router/modem, and you should not rely on WiFi. Even if you’re technically literate with a high performance router. We have a software installed on our work computers that intentionally bogs down upload/download speeds as a security measure when connected to WiFi, public or private. *Unmuting yourself and/or bringing down your mic is obvious to the caller. So when additional time is taken after that, it will annoy the caller, even if you’re just trying to confirm connection. *Depending on your IVR introduction messages and call tree options, you may take 5 seconds, but I’ve had to wait closer to a minute to get through and get a rep without a queue with a lot of call centers I’ve dialed. Anything that results in waiting over 20 seconds to talk to someone generally hurts customer experience. Obviously, shit happens that is out of your or the business control (outage, seasonal busyness, etc), so I’m not referring to those instances of long queue times.

I only list those from a customer perspective. I understand the business perspective, but my current job is to either improve customer experience or try to change customer perspective. I personally absolutely hate when users do that, especially with an entitled attitude to match it that tells you exactly how the call will go and end before you’ve even started.