Out of date tbh - It’s never a labyrinthine phone tree anymore, it’s a “natural speech” based menu that can never help with more than the most basic inquiries like “how much is my bill?” and still stubbornly refuses to put you in the queue for a real person.

I can live with hold music even for an hour because I can keep it in the background.

The absolute WORST is when they play some music for 30 seconds, then the music stops, cutting to some voice recording peddling some bullshit like “try out [Product]!” or “Use our new mobile app!”. I can’t focus on anything else with it in the background because I think each time it cuts the CSR might have picked up the line.

My personal pet peeve is when they play an ad before giving you the menu options.

First, wait thirty seconds for them to tell me how great their mobile app is. Then listen to the options, pick one, find out I picked the wrong one, and have to go back up one level. Now I have to listen to the ad again before I can hear the options.

I don’t care how proud you are of your app, I wouldn’t be calling you if I could solve my problem with it.