Google 'Talk To a Live Rep' Brings Pixel's Hold for Me To All Search Users

Google Search Labs is testing a "Talk to a Live Representative" feature where it will "help you place the call, wait on hold, and then give you a call once a live representative is available." From a report: When you search for customer service numbers, which Google recently started surfacing for Knowledge Panels, you might see a prominent "Talk to a live representative" prompt. Very simply, Google will call the support line "for you and wait on hold until a customer service representative picks up." At that time, Google will call you so you can get on with your business.

To "Request a call," you first specify a reason for why you're calling. In the case of airlines, it's: Update existing booking, Luggage issue, Canceled flight, Other issue, Flight check-in, Missed my flight, and Delayed flight. You then provide your phone number, with Google sending SMS updates. The Request page will note the estimated wait time. After submitting, you can cancel the request at any time.

Hold times are bad enough without bots.

[Fly Swatter]

Clogging up the queue. This is just going to be a reverse robocall problem, except for corporations and the harm is to actual customers trying to call in to get to a human in real time.

oh google

[awwshit]

Ironically, this does not work if you need customer service from Google itself.

Re:oh google

[swillden]

Ironically, this does not work if you need customer service from Google itself.

It actually does work fine for that. I've used it when calling Google Fi and the Google store.

Patent

[wildjokers]

This type of call back feature was protected by patent until it expired in 2015. The patent was held by a company called Virtual Hold and they defended it fiercely. They weren't just a patent troll though, they actually had a software based product. They basically got a patent for "I will give you a call back when I have time". The patent system is so broken: https://patents.google.com/pat... [google.com] Once the patent expired you started seeing everyone doing this. I was a developer at a call center related company at the time and added a call back feature to our software based ACD right after the patent expired.

Re:

[swillden]

Was Virtual Hold unwilling to license their patent for a reasonable fee? It appears that lots of people thought this was a good idea after the patent expired, so presumably they also thought this before it expired.

Tried something like this before, didn't work

[Kitkoan]

The issue wasn't that it didn't work per say, it's that it wouldn't connect me back fast enough. When it let me know that I wasn't on hold anymore, I went to connect back and it took it a second or two. By this point the other person had hung up on me, as they seem to get connected and go "Hello... Hello?..." and then disconnect in less than the 5 seconds it took me to get back on the call.

Re:

[JThundley]

That could easily happen without this technology though. It will not stop CS reps from hanging up too quickly.

This is not really what I want

[kwelch007]

What I want to to instruct my AI to talk to their AI and work out whatever the issue is, then text me back to say it's taken care of.

Of course they'll never get that right.

Re:

[kwelch007]

What I want to to instruct my AI to talk to their AI and work out whatever the issue is, then text me back to say it's taken care of.

Of course they'll never get that right.

And have it tell me that I'm getting my refund.

useless feature

[groobly]

This feature is useless, because it doesn't change "we'll talk to you when we good and well feel like it." It doesn't help me if they interrupt me an hour or three later. The only way this feature would be useful would be if it actually conducted the business for you.

Wonder what Google gets out of this?

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe I'm being overly paranoid, but to me this is just handing Google more data points about me as a consumer that I'd rather not share with such a large company. Now they can see more of who you call and for what reason.
Remember, if the service is free, you are the product.

No thanks!

Re:

[tlhIngan]

Maybe I'm being overly paranoid, but to me this is just handing Google more data points about me as a consumer that I'd rather not share with such a large company. Now they can see more of who you call and for what reason.
Remember, if the service is free, you are the product.

No, you're right. But Google also collects the data that could be useful to the company. Like how long people waited on hold.

It doesn't work every call, but I'm sure Google notes how long people end up on hold, how long people call bac

Excellent way for...

[0xG]

Google to Hoover up more data.