I got through finally. Turned out they had humans at 6 am Arizona time.
Turns out the email saying it was on hold and the big red line saying it was on hold don't actually mean it was on hold. This is what "Evelyn" told me:
Package is on hold awaiting for the next movement for the driver to collect and deliver it and the system shows the item will be delivered today, Is there anything else I may help you with?
These chat bots only have a limited pool of responses, to prevent them saying weird shit. They're just looking for certain key words or things closely related to their key words that direct them to specific lines.
Company I work at has a very similar one. And it's not likely checking to see if there's anybody working the queue before it asks if you want a live human
You would think "why is my shipment on hold" would be a key phrase they would look for. And then just show me the reason. Since it didn't say in the email they sent or the tracking info.
No, it turns out their customer service office doesn't open until 10 am Arizona time. Which is 5 1/2 hours from now.
So it was really helpful of them to send me an information-free notice at like 11 pm (I was already asleep) letting me know my package was on hold and giving me no further information no matter how deep into the tracking I went.
And if I do the tracking by phone, they tell me it will be delivered today.
Honestly, even though it's a 90-minute drive, the place where the package is located is open at 10 am and it's important enough to me that I'm just going to drive over there.
Yeah, that whole experience is terrible. I tend to go to bed early most of the year in Japan time so, especially if it's some US or European company, I can relate to the hatred of useless late-night notifications. Best of luck!