How long it takes to reach a human at 30 companies (we recorded every call)

We went back through every customer service call we've published, 49 calls to 30 companies, and timed how long each one took to reach a live person. Here is what got through, what didn't, where AI assistants and account number prompts stopped us, and the full dataset as a CSV.

Nick Khami · October 8, 2026 · 13 min read

The short answer: across the 31 calls where we reached a live person and the post says when, the median time to a human was 2:00, measured from the start of each published recording. Half of them got there between 1:28 and 3:40. The fastest was Pottery Barn at 0:49. The slowest were United at 19:09 and Delta at 16:15, and on both most of that was hold time after the menu had already put us in the queue.

Those 31 calls come from 49 calls we made to 30 companies' customer service lines between September 28 and October 8, 2026, all recorded and published on this blog. Some more numbers from the same set:

• 17 of the 49 calls never reached a person. At 2 of the 30 companies, Experian and FedEx, no call we dialed did. FedEx's agent only came on when FedEx called us back.
• An AI or virtual assistant answered first on 21 of 48 calls, at 12 of the 30 companies. (On the 49th call, the post doesn't say.) When one did, the median time to a person was 3:07 (11 calls). When a plain phone menu answered, it was 1:56 (19 calls). The two slowest calls are both in the assistant group, so don't read too much into a sample this small.
• 14 of the 31 calls reached a person in under 2 minutes. Six took more than 5 minutes.

Four things got us through, again and again:

1. Say you don't have the number they're asking for, or don't enter one. Fifth Third transferred us "due to invalid entries" at 1:44. Fabletics sent us to a consultant at 1:08 once we said we didn't have the account phone number. DIRECTV put a person on at 2:47 after we said we had no account number.
2. Pick the option for new customers. The sales line at Windstream (Kinetic) answered in 0:55, after two calls on the customer lines stopped at an account prompt. "Insurance for you or your family" at UnitedHealthcare took 1:04, the quote option at AAA 1:24, and "not a member" at USAA 3:28.
3. Give the menu a short, specific reason. "Customer service" at Pottery Barn (0:49). "Flight change fee" at United, where a long sentence got "Sorry, I didn't understand." "Book a held reservation" at American Airlines. "Cancel my account", then "disconnect", at Spectrum.
4. Ask for a person again, and keep answering. Hertz's virtual assistant connected us after our sixth request (3:07). Fubo's took two requests (1:59). At UPS, "representative" said twice at the tracking number prompt got us into the queue (5:57).

Saying "representative" on its own was the most common thing that didn't work. More on that below.

Customer service hold times: every company we called #

Sorted from fastest to slowest. Times are minutes:seconds from the start of the published recording to the first live person. Where we made more than one call, the table says which. Each company links to the post with the recording, the phone tree and the full transcript.

We also called four single gym clubs while writing cancellation guides. Local staff picked up fast: Crunch Polk Street at 0:04, LA Fitness Irvine Jamboree at 0:45, and Planet Fitness Lakeshore at 0:59. The Planet Fitness Kearny St recording starts with the staff greeting. These are one club's front desk, not a company's customer service line, so they're in the CSV but not in any of the numbers above.

How to reach a human at customer service: what worked #

Don't have the number? Say so, or enter nothing. Most menus ask for an account, phone, card or confirmation number first. When we didn't have one, saying so out loud or just not entering one often moved us along:

• Fifth Third asked three times for a "full account or card number". We didn't enter one, and it said "Your call is being transferred due to invalid entries." A person answered at 1:44.
• Fabletics' voice assistant asked twice for the phone number on the account. When we said we didn't have it, it said "I will transfer you to a consultant for more help."
• DIRECTV's AI agent asked for the phone number three times and then the account number. Saying we didn't have either, then choosing satellite, got a live representative.
• Delta's AI-powered voice assistant asked for a six character confirmation number. "I don't have that. I just have a general question and I need a representative" got us transferred.

This doesn't always work. Experian, FedEx, Verizon and Windstream stopped us at exactly this step (see below).

Choose the new customer option. Sales, quote and joining lines were consistently quick, and none of these calls needed an account number:

• Windstream (Kinetic): the sales line, (866) 703-8175, press 1. A live sales rep at 0:55.
• UnitedHealthcare: press 1, "insurance for you or your family". A licensed agent at 1:04.
• AAA Mountain West Group: press 4, "to become a AAA member or obtain an insurance quote", then a ZIP code. A person at 1:24.
• Allstate: "Let's get you to an agent. Just a few quick questions first to tailor your quote." A licensed insurance agent answered at 2:08.
• USAA: press 1 for "not a member", then 2 for joining. The eligibility department at 3:28.

Both Wayfair calls also ended up with Wayfair Sales (0:56 and 1:12). The catch: you may get a salesperson, not the team that can fix your problem. Ask them to transfer you.

Give a short reason in the menu's own words. Speech menus want a few words, not a sentence:

• Pottery Barn: "customer service", a person at 0:49.
• United: "flight change fee". A long sentence about fees got "Sorry, I didn't understand."
• American Airlines: "Apply a flight credit to a held reservation and ticket it" wasn't understood. "Book a held reservation" was.
• Spectrum: "cancel my account", then "disconnect", to reach the people who make retention offers.
• DIRECTV: "cancel service", a tip from DIRECTV's own community forum.

Ask again, and keep answering. Some assistants only connect you after a few tries:

• Hertz: "Let me connect you now" came after our sixth request, 2 minutes 44 seconds in. A person answered at 3:07.
• Fubo: the AI assistant offered to answer instead and warned of "a wait of five minutes or more". We asked again for a human, then chose customer service. A person answered at 1:59.
• UPS: "representative", said twice at the tracking number prompt.
• SiriusXM: we said it was a general policy question and asked for a person twice.
• Verizon: "Could I just speak with a representative, please?" didn't work. "An agent, please" did.

And sometimes the answer is to do nothing. At Hulu we pressed nothing after the menu, as it invites you to, and a person answered at 1:28.

What didn't work #

"Representative" on its own. It's the first thing everyone tries, and on these calls it was ignored more often than not:

• Fifth Third: "Let's try again."
• FPL: "Sorry. That option is not available."
• Experian: "I don't recognize that entry", then the Social Security number prompt again.
• PayPal: we said "Representative, I have a general question" three times and it carried on with its own questions.
• USAA: "Sorry, for what product?"
• FedEx: "Sorry, I cannot connect you to a representative. For assistance, please call us back later with your door tag or tracking number."

Account number walls. Some lines wouldn't go anywhere without one:

• FedEx: none of our three calls without a tracking number reached a person, and none got a callback offer.
• Verizon: with no account, the AI assistant said "Please call back once you have that information ready" and ended the call.
• Experian: the credit freeze line wants your full Social Security number before it does anything.
• Windstream: both calls that hit the account number prompt ended there.
• FPL: it asks for an account number or Social Security number. Our first four calls never reached a person.

AI assistants that end the call. Three assistants hung up on us, and one more call ended when our caller gave up:

• Hertz: Haley said "Let me connect you with a live agent", then nothing happened. When our caller stayed silent through two "haven't heard from you" prompts, Haley ended the call. If it comes back and talks, answer it.
• Fubo: we let the AI assistant answer a question instead of insisting on a person. It said "I'm sorry, but I can't help you with that" and the call ended.
• Verizon: the no-account call above, ended by the assistant.
• DIRECTV: on the first call, our caller turned down the AI agent's second offer to connect it and hung up. That one was our mistake.

Menu loops.

• FPL sent every question back to its new account signup. It took us five calls to find the route that reached an agent.
• UPS answered "We don't have a tracking number" with "I'm sorry, I didn't understand that".
• USAA offers "membership questions" as an option but re-asked the question when we said it. Plain "membership" worked on the second try.

When you can't reach a person #

• Ask for a callback. FedEx only offered one once we gave it a tracking number. It called back about 4 minutes after we first dialed, and an agent was on the line 23 seconds into the callback. Delta offered a callback "within 14 minutes" or messaging with "the wait time is zero minutes". We stayed on hold instead, so we can't say how those went.
• Try a different number. At Windstream, the support line and the existing customer option both stopped at an account prompt. The sales line's new customer option reached a person.
• Call again with a different approach. Our second calls to DIRECTV, Fubo, UPS and Verizon reached a person after the first didn't, and so did our third call to Hertz and our fifth to FPL. Each time we changed something.
• Some lines are built so you can't. Across 15 calls one afternoon, no route on Experian's credit freeze line reached a consumer support agent. Pressing 2 on its headquarters line, 714-830-7000, got a real operator, but only to transfer us back into the same system. It kept steering us to freeze online or by mail.

Methodology #

• Who called: call4me, our AI phone caller, on behalf of an AI agent. Five calls (American Airlines twice, Aquasana, Etihad and Spectrum) were made by call4me users' agents for their own errands. The rest were our own calls, mostly general questions with no account, plus a few on our own accounts (Amazon Pharmacy, Experian, a FedEx package, Verizon).
• When: September 28 to October 8, 2026. Each company was called on a single day, at whatever time we were writing about it, so these numbers say nothing about how hold times change by time of day or day of week.
• Which calls count: every call in our published customer service, cancellation and retention posts, one row per published call. Most companies got one call. The Experian post describes 15 calls but publishes one recording, so Experian counts as one call. Where a post has several, each one is a separate row in the data, and the table above says which call reached a person. We left out two calls that don't measure a company's line: a follow-up to the LA Fitness club that nobody answered, and Verizon's callback after our call hit call4me's time limit (the representative was already reached on the call before). The four gym club calls and FedEx's callback are in the CSV, marked by line type, and left out of the stats.
• How times were measured: from the start of each published recording to the first moment a live person speaks, read from the timestamps in each post. Several recordings have long silences shortened, so on those the real wait was a little longer. Where the post gives the real elapsed time, the CSV notes it. For example, United's person picked up 19 minutes 27 seconds after dialing, and Verizon's 6 minutes 34 seconds into the call. If a post doesn't say when a person answered (SiriusXM), we left the time blank rather than estimate it.
• "AI assistant first" means the post itself calls what answered an AI, virtual, voice or automated assistant, or an AI agent. A speech or keypad menu that the post calls a menu or phone system counts as no.
• Our caller made mistakes. In 7 of the 17 calls that didn't reach a person, the post puts at least part of the blame on our caller: never asking for a person (Hertz), staying silent when an assistant came back (Hertz), turning down a transfer (DIRECTV), letting the AI assistant answer instead (Fubo), a bug on our side (UPS), stalling (Windstream) and picking the wrong option (Windstream). They're still in the data.
• What this isn't: a ranking of customer service quality. It's a small sample, mostly one call per company, and how fast someone picks up says nothing about whether they can help. Several of the fast answers were sales teams.

Download the data #

The full dataset is here: how-long-to-reach-a-human.csv. It has 53 rows: the 49 calls to company lines, FedEx's callback and the four gym club calls. Each row has the company, the post it comes from, which call it was, the date, the number dialed, the line type, whether we reached a person, the time to a person, whether an AI assistant answered first, what the menu asked for, what got through, a link to the post and notes. Every value comes from the linked post, which has the recording and the full transcript. You're welcome to use it. Please link back to this page.

Have your agent make these calls #

call4me is a phone for your AI agent: your agent (Claude Code, Codex, ChatGPT) tells it what to get done and it makes the call, waits through the menu and the hold, and reports back with the outcome and the transcript. If you use call4me, paste this into your agent:

Call [company] customer service at [number] and reach a live person. Answer the menu's questions in a few words. If it asks for an account or confirmation number, give [my number], or say I don't have it and ask for a representative. If it doesn't take "representative", try "agent", say what I'm calling about in a few words, or pick the new customer option and ask to be transferred. If an assistant goes quiet, answer it when it comes back. Ask [your question], and don't agree to any change or charge without checking with me.

customer service · phone trees · hold times · talk to a real person · data