What happens to a multi-million dollar industry built on managing wait times when Apple makes waiting painless?

Yesterday, I called to reschedule my booking. After navigating the menu, I heard the familiar script: “Your call is very important to us and someone will be there shortly.”

Instead of hearing the robotic message in a loop and getting a sense of false importance, I tried Apple’s Hold Assist, which muted the music and notified me when the agent answered.

For 50 years, companies controlled what you heard while waiting, and with Apple’s Hold Assist this may change the equation.

Apple released iOS 26 and a new feature called “Hold Assist” which detects the hold music, mutes it, and sends you a notification when the agent answers your call.

This is not just a design change but the bigger shift, a shift where the waiting experience which was always managed by the enterprises is now moving to the customer’s phone.

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The Billion Dollar Business of Waiting

Waiting is not just an annoyance for customers, it’s a billion dollar business for enterprises.

According to the recent market study, the global virtual queuing system market is worth $657 million today and expected to reach $1.27 billion by 2034, enough to employ 20,000 contact center agents full-time.

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The Cost Paradox

While Apple makes it easy for customers to escape the pain of waiting, it changes the cost equation for many enterprises.

What companies gain today

Virtual hold and callback systems generate real, measurable ROI:

• In healthcare, adding callback capability reduced abandonment rates from ~30% to just 1% in six months (Keona Health).
• Callback adoption has been shown to boost first-contact resolution by 75% and cut wait times by nearly a third (Teliqon).
• Forrester reports that callback systems can lower abandonment by up to 75% and reduce talk time by 25% (Forrester).

What changes when callers don’t stay on the call

Here is the thing with Hold Assist, it doesn’t hang up the call, but the device hears the MOH instead of the human caller.

• Companies still pay for the call, and continue playing MOH which the callers are not listening.
• They spend money for Branded on-hold messages, and the options for a callback, but the callers may not be there to make a choice.
• Virtual Queuing vendors still continue to get paid.
• Moreover, enterprises can’t abandon callbacks or MOH for the people who may not use Hold Assist.

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But Doesn’t Android Already Do This?

Yes. Android has offered similar features for years through apps and settings, and there is no major change, so will Apple be able to make a dent.

• iPhone users represent 57% of U.S. smartphones (StatCounter).
• We have seen in the past that when Apple releases a feature, people tend to use it. Be it Facetime, FaceID etc.
• When Apple releases something, industries look at that feature.

Or maybe it won’t be different. Maybe the hold industry adapts again.

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The Big Question

If Android’s “Hold for Me” features didn’t change the industry, can Apple’s “Hold Assist” have the potential to make a change?

• Maybe enterprises reinvent hold engagement, channel switching will be more widely used. Instead of playing hold music, companies just say, we will let you know when the agent is ready. May be “callback” becomes the de-facto standard.
• Or maybe, when customers start ignoring hold experiences at scale, the economics finally break.

The most important question isn’t whether Apple may kill hold music.
It’s whether this is the tipping point where enterprises finally ask:

“Why are we paying to talk to people who aren’t listening?”