“Please hold” might be the most irritating combination of words in the first world. You have been transferred about five times in the past hour to have just one question answered. And every time someone on the other end of the line says, “Please hold,” you kind of want to throw your phone across the room. Once you’re put on hold (again, for the sixth time today), what follows is usually the most irritating music in the world. Instead of sitting on the phone with his blood boiling, one Reddit user decided to change his experience.
He was put on hold by the Apple customer service line. The “hold” music was ugly. The sound quality was low, making “an upbeat rock song [sound] like pure distortion.” The Reddit user sent Tim Cook an email notifying him that Apple’s “on hold” music was unpleasant. Though Tim Cook is known to respond to at least some of the 800 or so daily emails he receives, what happened next was a testament to Apple’s quality customer service:
“Much to my surprise a lady from Cupertino called me up the next day, saying she’d received a concerning email from Tim about ugly distortion hold music while on the phone, that Tim had tested this himself and agreed that something had to be done. She assured me that the hold music would be tested to make sure it sounded pleasant on all types of phones and connections.
The next time I called Apple, the hold music was indeed very pleasant.”
Maybe Cook and the Apple team can take it one step further and take song requests?
