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For many of us, calling a doctor’s office, insurance company, customer service, or indeed any kind of back office has become an exercise in frustration, especially these days when increased demand and staff cuts have made the phone waits endless. Yes, you can simply use the speaker to monitor the line, but do you really want to listen to that awful music for over an hour?
A new Android feature called Hold for Me, which Google just announced, can make those phone waits a bit more tolerable. Hold for Me is currently available as a preview feature in the US for Google’s new Pixel 5 and Pixel 4A (5G) phones.
Here’s how it works, according to Google: If you call a toll-free number and they put you on hold, the Google Assistant will monitor the call while you do what you need to do again. When a human comes online, they will be notified with a sound, vibration and a notification on the screen while the representative is asked to wait for you to take the call. If at any time you get nervous and want to know what is going on, you can monitor what is being said, or played, through subtitles in real time on your phone screen.
Currently, Hold for Me is an optional feature that can be enabled in Google settings. It can be considered similar to other features that Google has introduced to improve the phone experience, such as call filtering, which uses voice transcription to allow you to request information from an unknown person before taking the call.
Personally, as someone who has spent too much time listening to the same tunes over and over again, I can’t wait for it to become more available.
