Unfortunately now it seems to be the worst of both worlds: companies don’t have a contact email, but only a phone number and sometimes a useless chat bot. When I finally work up the courage to use the phone, I have to go through a long automated menu system, and/or wait for half an hour.

Once I actually get a human on the phone it’s never as bad as my mind made it out to be -but I would still very much prefer an email.

Also in a lot of cases it's simply a waste of an employee's time to answer basic questions on the phone all day long. Robots should be able to do that better. But I do agree that customers should be trapped on hold for 30 minutes.

I think at least there should be at least a digital queue system so that you can just get an automated call back instead of having to wait for hours listening to the hold music.