I did tier 1, 2, and eventually some 3 support back in the day for a software company. I liked how they handled it.

Customer called in, reached a live person doing intake. The intake person noted their question and callback number, helping to scope the problem if needed, and entered a ticket into the queue. The intake person gave the caller an expected wait time for a support tech to call back, pointed them to online written help documentation, and ended the call. Depending on call volume and time or day, they’d get a callback from a tech anywhere from immediately to the next morning.

Support techs like myself were coached to help over the phone, but also to point out the written materials and encourage their use. I would commonly say, “sure, that’s a problem we can fix, go ahead and go to screen x, click on button y, etc. By the way, you’re not the only one who had had this question, we even have an entry on this in our support documentation. Let me show you where you it’s at so you can get to the fix even faster than a phone call next time”.

Having the intake person take numbers, then techs call back later saved customers from having to wait on hold for lengths of time. We had very few cases of irate customers stuck waiting.