I had, until today, a AAA VISA card. At one point it was pretty nice. I’d get 5% back for every gas purchase I made. Of course, they decided to change those rules and you had to spend 150% of the amount you paid for gas to get 5% back. In any case it was a big pain in the ass to keep track of how much I spent on the card, so I decided to cancel it. 5 minutes of hold and I got someone who explained how to use the card to maximize the cash back and tell me how I should have kept another card I cancelled a few months back. But they didn’t convince me to keep the card so I was treated to 10+ more minutes of hold. Cancelling the card took me 20 minutes or more.
Well, I was listening to NPR while I did it and it beat being at work so it wasn’t all bad.
Only 20 minutes, huh? I think the industry benchmark is to keep hold times long enough that 97% of clients hang up, forget to call back, and then get hit with an annual fee/late fee/inactivity fee. Ideally, these clients will then call to try to get the fee reversed and cancel the card, be on hold forever, hang up in disgust, forget to call back, and so on.