If you hate waiting on hold when you’re trying to reach a company, you’ll want to download the free iPhone app LucyPhone as fast as your Wi-Fi will let you.
Once you have LucyPhone installed, you’ll see a searchable list of companies with 1-800 numbers; ranging from utilities, to airlines, to magazine subscription services. Basically, if the company exists in the United States or Canada and has toll-free number, you’ll likely find it on this list. If it’s not, don’t worry; you can enter in toll-free numbers on your own, too. After choosing the company you need to contact, you’ll enter in your phone number and hit start call.
Your phone will immediately start ringing with a call from an 800 number. It’ll be Lucy, who asks that you press 1 to connect your call. You’ll then need to go through an enter any information the company requires of you—LucyPhone says it will never store your personal information—and once you reach the hold queue you’ll press ** (star, star) to have Lucy take over the call. Then you sit back and wait. Through the app interface, you’ll be able to see how long Lucy has been waiting on hold for you, and you can choose to rejoin or end the call at any time.
Once the customer service rep has picked up on the other end, Lucy will instruct them to press 1 to connect. If they do so, Lucy calls you back and patches you through immediately. There’s a slight bug in this step, but should you end up in the hold queue again, Lucy will step back in on your behalf. The app does not say it is iOS 4 tested, but it successfully ran in the background on my iPhone 4.
You can sign up for an optional account on LucyPhone’s website, as well as use the service on landline phones, whatever those are.
