In the late ‘90s, WordPerfect word processing application was Microsoft Word’s biggest competitor. There was just one problem: It was difficult to use. In fact, it was so bad that more than 16,000 people were calling in daily on WordPerfect’s 33 customer support lines. Even with 800 employees on staff to guide callers through the ins and outs of WordPerfect products, some callers ended up on hold. Company executives didn’t like the idea of all those callers twiddling their thumbs, wondering what was happening while they waited on hold. That’s when WordPerfect Vice President Pete Peterson came up with the idea of using “hold jockeys” to let callers know how their call was faring. He wanted to make waiting on the support lines as comfortable as possible. The hold jockeys broadcasted over the customer support phone lines Monday through Friday between 6 a.m. and 7 p.m. They worked out of what looked like a typical radio station booth in the west end of the customer support building. Every two minutes, a hold jockey would come on live over the phone lines and give callers a traffic report about the status of their calls. Peterson’s suggestion paid off, with callers waiting an average of 36.8 seconds before being connected with a customer service representative — which was well within the 45-second goal — and callers no longer had to wonder if they were on terminal hold.
