Hate hold? Maybe Lucy can help.

LucyPhone promises that you'll "never wait on hold again." Here's how the free service worked when we recently tested the beta version: You pick the toll-free customer-service number that you want to call from a menu at www.lucyphone.com, on Facebook, or through the iPhone app. Enter your phone number and click Start. In a moment, your phone rings. It's Lucy, who asks you to press 1 to connect with the company you want.

Once connected, you navigate the customer-service phone menu. When you get where you need to go, if you're put on hold, you press "* *" and hang up. You can then go about your other business while LucyPhone keeps your place in the queue. When an agent becomes available, he or she is asked to press 1 to reach you. Your phone rings and you're connected. The company says it handles 50,000 to 70,000 calls per month.

But if you don't end up on hold, using LucyPhone is a needless hassle. We reached a person in less than 30 seconds on about half of 22 test calls, 11 with Lucy and 11 immediately afterward without. We called two cable companies, two banks, an HMO, a utility, a cellular carrier, three government agencies, and Consumer Reports customer service.

And you don't need LucyPhone if you're calling one of 200 companies whose call centers use Virtual Hold Technology software, which gives you the option of a callback, usually if your wait is due to be more than 2 minutes.

LucyPhone doesn't always deliver. On two of 11 calls, we were disconnected—by the Internal Revenue Service after almost 32 minutes on hold and by the California Department of Motor Vehicles after almost 12 minutes. "Arrrrgh!" says Tom Oristian, a LucyPhone co-founder, who blames call-center agents who don't understand when the service tells them how to connect to a caller.

When we called back, we reached the IRS after another 26 minutes on hold and a DMV agent after another 19 minutes—so LucyPhone actually doubled the time to reach a human.