It depends on their window.

If they include call volume data back to the Neolithic period in their calculations, then yes, call volumes are higher than average (the average being 0.001 calls per century, rounding up).

Pretty sure that's how they do the math.

actually, it is. let me explain.

Let's simplify and say that there are peak hours and low hours. 100 people call during a peak hour, and 25 during a low hour. The chance of calling during a peak hour is 80%, since you are four times as likely to be one of the 100 rather than one of the 25.

The same effect means that you are almost always on planes and trains that are very full, even though every now and then they ride almost empty. Fewer people get to experience empty train rides by definition.

Of course this effect falls apart when your usage patterns differ from everybody else's. If everybody takes the train at rush hour, you might ride an empty one at noon. Or, if you call the hotline while everybody else is sleeping, you might have a better chance.

But yeah companies also just lie to make themselves look better lol

"Your call is very important to us... but not so important that we would actually do anything about it like hiring more representatives. This message will repeat every 5 minutes until you get frustrated and hang up."

Interestingly, British consumer rights guru Martin Lewis is currently running a crowdsourced data gathering exercise on this in the UK.

The purpose being to identify if companies are purposefully playing these sorts of message no matter their actual call volume. (Which we all know they are, but this will help prove it)

https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/report-high-call-volumes/

Call the Sales/new accounts line and see how long it takes them to pick up.

Makes sense if the average includes the hours of zero calls when their phone line is closed

I sell and build call centers for a living.

Yeah, it's fake lol. I mean maybe for some businesses it isn't fake, but usually clients would ask us to make it where "if there's more than X calls in queue, play the message". Turns out, there's always more than X calls in queue. It's not actually looking at the average.

It's kinda weird, some things are just always like that, some things clients want to add in because the average user expects it.

Someone wanted a repeat caller to get bumped to the front of the queue. Literally encouraging the "if I hang up and call back I'll get there sooner" people. Awful.

Once a year they receive negative a billion calls on a day that is later erased, and it really skews the average

Also: “Please listen closely as our menus have recently changed.”

Technically true If they close the phone line at night.

Yeah but it sounds a lot better than "We've pursued a policy of understaffing to save costs".

A steadily increasing curve would always be above its average, no?

Well, aaaactually, don't they have more than average calls half of the time?

Sure you can. If the average is over 24 hours, then any time the phone line is open they're getting higher than the average number of calls. X2 if you include weekends and holidays.

It's a higher average than the amount of calls they had 150 years ago.

Eehrm, acktually, the tweet is wrong 🤓

You can always be getting a result above average in a series of numbers as long as the nth number is significantly greater than the previous ones. For example, f(x) = x^2 would always be above average for every next number

I'd imagine they include their off-hours in the 'averages'.

"So crazy that we're getting more calls when we're open than when we're closed!"

It’s the average they calculated they’d get in order to allocate the minimum budget and personnel to what the “normal” calculation would be and only inconvenience the customer when it rose about that amount.

The nomenclature I always hear is, "Experiencing a higher than expected call volume," and since no one can prove how low their expectations actually are there is no crack in which to insert the prybar of legal complaint.

So look, guys, it's reaaaally easy:

If it isn't mandated, regulated, and enforced by law, assume the corporation is lying.

Bonus Wisdom Save: If a corp says you should do something, strongly consider doing the opposite.

The odds of ever needing to call customer service for a product or service weigh heavily in my decision to buy it.

And every support line needs a "direct to tier 2 support" option. I don't care if every caller chooses it. If I wanted tier 1 support I would be on the website.

....sorry we're continuously experiencing higher number of calls than what is average for other companies.

It's older math, Sir, but it checks out.