You said — “The phone queues are designed to get rid of you, the customer. The hold times are designed to get rid of you. The constant voice prompts to visit the company’s web site is designed to get rid of you. The ‘service’ reps have the usual 10 or 12-question litany that is mostly useless for them or you in answering a question.”
You have to get “escalated” up the chain. Usually a level or two is enough to get someone who is American and knows how to speak English... LOL...
But, unfortunately, that does take time. I remember when I found out a long time ago that a speaker phone was a good thing to have for a lot of companies who put you on hold. When I first got one of those, they really weren’t out on the market, except through the phone company itself, and it was the “Charlie’s Angels” kind. So, I got that one. It had to be hard-wired by the phone company.
But, when I got it, it was wonderful. I could walk around the place and do other stuff and come back on when they were ready. I remember many calls that I had, back then, which would keep me on hold for an hour or so...
When Gateway (or Gateway 2000 back then) were the only real alternative in the IBM PC clone market they were the darlings of tech and business publications. They were very much like Dell in that they were the victims of their own success.
In 1993-94 timeframe we phoned for tech support on one of the standard multi-line AT&T phone systems (speakerphone). We were put on hold....for 1 and one-half days. We muted the speakerphone, went home, returned the next day and waited and waited until we were finally put through to a tech.