How can the computer guess how long one's waiting time is?

[Deja Q]

I'm on hold with a company and the computer said at the start "Estimated waiting time is 60 seconds." Well, 300 seconds later, and I'm still waiting.

:shrug:

[BlueJazz]

1. Actually, it's an extremely complicated formula

ascertained by the sound of the callers voice (in Cycles per second)

For Example: You, being a man, might have a voice tone in the primary range of 350 Cycles. Divide that by 7.5868, Plus the hours left in the working day, times the amount of minutes left in the "break" of the employee who you are trying to reach and voila!

The answer is sent over to a monkey with a dart and a Dart Board....the
Monkey throws the dart which lands on an electronic dart board which,
in turn, is hooked to the phone line....and voice recorder..

Glad to be of help :)

[gristy]

2. The computer can usually come up with a pretty good guess

because there are a many service people answering phones and many people on hold waiting to talk with someone. By averaging things out, it can come up with a pretty good guess how long a wait is to be expected.

Your experience notwithstanding... :P