Get Out of Voice Menu Pergatory

renx99 writes "I don't know about you, but I hate calling tech support, and the worst if the wait. Paul English felt the same way and has put together a list of shortcuts on how to get to a human quickly. If enough people bypass these phone systems, maybe the big companies will finally get a clue and start providing real customer service again..."

Comments

IVR Guide

[fembots]

If enough people bypass these phone systems, maybe the big companies will finally get a clue and start providing real customer service again

Or, big companies will simply introduce more sophisticated system. I think people get carried away and forget who is still behind and in control of the system.

And I do believe companies do want to provide real customer service, this whole phone system thing is merely herding clueless customers to designated areas, it's not going (and unable) to answer questions anyway, you will eventually talk to a human being.

Moreover, some companies already have their own IVR guide, for example a bank here, this is something to be encouraged.

Re:IVR Guide

[SuperIceBoy]

I have already experienced this with menus that require you to speak the choices. There is no touch tone options, your only choice is speak your commands.

Re:IVR Guide

[Jupix]

If enough people bypass these phone systems, maybe the big companies will finally get a clue and start providing real customer service again

Or, big companies will simply introduce more sophisticated system.

Or, big companies will get rid of customer service. Would that be any better?

Re:IVR Guide

[ReverendHoss]

"Or, big companies will simply introduce more sophisticated system. I think people get carried away and forget who is still behind and in control of the system."

Unfortunately, there's a ceiling on how advanced the systems can get. If things seem to be getting completely FUBARed, there has to be a choice made on what the default is. If the input completely flies in the face of what the program is expecting, the system designer has to make a choice as to how he handles the customer. Short of a call system capable of passing a Turing test, he can either A) drop the call and say "I'm sorry, the system can't figure out what you are doing. Tough. *click*" or B) pass the call on to a human who can intelligently handle the situation. I'm willing to bet in 99% of the situations where five '0' presses result in five "I'm sorry, that's not a valid option" replies, and the sixth connects to an agent, it's the system playing it safe.

Random button smashing usually denotes a fed-up, pissed off customer, and that's the last kind of customer you want the system to simply give up on.

Re:IVR Guide

[antdude]

Is there a compiled list of these IVR guides (not the story's link) like that bank link? It would be nice to print them out or bookmark them for references.

Re:IVR Guide

[nutrock69]

- Or, big companies will get rid of customer service. Would that be any better?

They can't get rid of customer service completely, but you know they all want to. They can, however, make it as hard as possible for you to contact them. Have you tried to find the customer support number on the website of a big company lately? If you have and you found it, I congratulate you. A couple of years ago I would have killed to have the list in TFA just for the 1-800 numbers it contains. I've spent days tracking down some of those phone numbers when I needed them.

They're getting so rare nowadays that I'd be surprised if it's not a scavenger hunt item by now.

Re:IVR Guide

[Seumas]

My favorite thing is when I call into Sprint to talk to someone about the $375 charge on my phone when I've only had it for three weeks and the bill is supposed to be under $100/mo . . . And they complain to me about not being able to hear me because I have a bad connection.

NO SHIT EINSTEIN! I'm using YOUR cell phones on YOUR network! Don't complain to *me* that your coverage sucks in a technical business park in a major city.

Re:IVR Guide

[gid13]

"Random button smashing usually denotes a fed-up, pissed off customer, and that's the last kind of customer you want the system to simply give up on."
Evidently you don't work in customer service. Fed-up, pissed off people are who I don't want to talk to. Also, stupid people are who I don't want to talk to. Obviously, a phone system is going to end up controlled by the owners who want to make profit, so step one is for customers to quit businesses that provide poor service, stating poor service as the reason. Additionally, phone systems should probably be designed to screw the customers that call back over and over for no reason, wasting employees' time.

Re:IVR Guide

[vsprintf]

They can't get rid of customer service completely, but you know they all want to. They can, however, make it as hard as possible for you to contact them.

That's true enough. They are also making it as hard as possible to communicate if you do manage to get through to a real person. I recently went through a phone menu maze only to wind up at a dead-end and started pounding "0". Then I was connected to "Harry" who had a passing acquaintance with English. It took me several minutes to make him understand that I did not use Microsoft Windows at home, so I could not access their "solution". Once you get them off their scripts, they're lost. For many companies, customer service is dead (consumers don't need it).

Re:IVR Guide

[gcaseye6677]

There will be a special corner of hell reserved for the person who thought this was a good idea. Do these systems EVER work correctly?

Re:IVR Guide

[ReverendHoss]

"Evidently you don't work in customer service. Fed-up, pissed off people are who I don't want to talk to. Also, stupid people are who I don't want to talk to. "

I can see how someone on the front lines wouldn't want to talk to them, but (as you've said) the executives paying for the system want the system to cost them as little as possible, and make them as much as possible. Making them as much as possible usually means keeping customers, even if they infuriate their customer service reps.

As for stupid people, the author of the list referenced in the article seems both highly intelligent and well-off. That's the type of customer that companies that don't depend on volume for profit wants to keep happy and loyal. After all, that's why they pay people to handle customer service for them.

Re:IVR Guide

[JonGretar]

I had this problem when I was trying to get in contact with IBM to get support on Tivoli SAN Software.
Even though I am Icelandic I speak very good english like most other people in my county (we are tought it from the age of 9.)
But of course I have a slight accent and I could never get out of the first menu. Who in hell thought that this could be in any way more reliable or easy than simply having a touch button menu. I really can understand why they would have some form of computer service to answer and do basic organizing of calls but it can not result on us not getting any service at all.

Re:IVR Guide

[jZnat]

Nope. The first one that comes to mind is the Microsoft Product Activation hotline. You try speaking the code, then typing the code via the buttons, and eventually end up talking to a human being who is much more willing to help than the damn robot...

Re:IVR Guide

[ghislain_leblanc]

I would say that pissed of customers are exactly the type you want to let speak to a human as soon as possible. I know that when some company's menu system tries so hard to prevent me from talking to someone that I ultimatly hang-up (it happens), I make sure I won't ever have to call again by never buying again. I think I remember a similar past Slashdot article saying something like: new voice recognition systems detect tension in your speach and automaticaly transfer you when it senses that you are getting annoyed... I'd like to see a list of who's doing that, cause that's the type of buisness I like.

Re:IVR Guide

[v0x0j]

Evidently you don't work in customer service. Fed-up, pissed off people are who I don't want to talk to. Also, stupid people are who I don't want to talk to.

I hear you. I am a doctor, and I just hate talking to sick people. They always whine that something hurts, or even worse - they bleed all over you. Geez, if you want to talk to someone, just make sure that you don't have bones sticking out of you.

Re:IVR Guide

[jonbrewer]

executives paying for the system want the system to cost them as little as possible, and make them as much as possible. Making them as much as possible usually means keeping customers, even if they infuriate their customer service reps.

Customers needing to circumvent voice systems could be costing a company more money in customer service costs than they generate in profit. A large faceless corporation peddling commodity products might be advised to let such customers take their business elsewhere.

Re:IVR Guide

[Coltman]

Thats funny. Last time I had to call the Microsoft Product Activation Center, I was completely bombed. (I'm a pretty cheap drunk, and I had at least 7 or 8 beers in me) Couldn't walk, and had, I'm sure, a pretty slurred speech.

Never had a glitch or even had to repeat myself to the robot. Straight through and thank you for calling Microsoft!

I'm pretty sure anyone with a strong accent would have a hard time (texan, east indian, french italian... you get the idea), but it seemed pretty easy to me :)

I remember shaking my head halfway through the call going, "why did I do this now??"

Re:IVR Guide

[admdrew]

Saying "representative" or "agent" will almost always work. I'm a relay operator, so I'm on the phone *ALL* day with 800 numbers...

Re:IVR Guide

[BrainInAJar]

well, technically speaking you have an accent as well. I could probably notice it on you (unless you're western Canadian).

The systems are set up though to only deal with the broadcast standard accent, which I think is the problem.

Re:IVR Guide

[ReverendHoss]

I'm guessing situations like that are relatively rare. After all, if the money involved in the transaction is truly trivial, most customers wouldn't waste their time calling a service line in the first place.

Customers for most companies generate more income with each sale than fifteen minutes with a service rep costs. Especially if that customer service rep is outsourced, cheaper labor. Repeat problem customers may be more trouble than they are worth, but that decision would be made by a human being.

Re:IVR Guide

[Anonymous Coward]

Even though I am Icelandic I speak very good english like most other people in my county (we are tought it from the age of 9.)

Nice...

Re:IVR Guide

[Anonymous Coward]

I work in the call center business and some things I'd like to point out.

1 - When an IVR tells you to speak your choices but doesn't say you can also punch them in, most of the times you actually can punch those in. In fact, on some IVRs what happens is that a speech block is matched and then translated into a keystroke and the program proceeds.

2 - IVR programming is mega bucks. People spend millions of dollars, analyzing call center efficiency, developing IVR applications, developing CTI routing strategies and developing desktop applications (in_house/standard CRM packages and so on and CTI enabled desktop apps).

Most IVR apps that we encounter are seemingly 2-3 level deeps menus with a good 5-6 options that we can hear. In reality, some of these applications contains thousands of IVR pages, a page being a menu choice of a voice playback that you hear. Some of these IVR applications take months to develop and months to test. It is normal for a customer to initiate a project in January and be going live with an IVR application in December. It's a lot of work.

3 - Speech recognition mostly happens today using Nuance, BBN, and Speechworks products. IBM and MS speech recognitions engines are not used for such applications. A lot of times the choice is limited depending on what IVR platform is used. Many times there are corporate standards or partnerships or loyalty to one platform and it forces all newly acquired and other owned entities to switch to the same platform. This also causes millions of dollars worth of business to call center service providers.

4 - Some business people who decide on the menu items and the layout for the IVR, actually allow barge-thru (speak while IVR is speaking or press a number). These people also allow you to zero out and hit the operator. They will even allow customers to say operator or agent anywhere and be thrown out of the IVR and into the agent queue immediately. Sometimes, they will try to convince you to pick a choice but if you insist on pressing 0 they will connect you thru.

People on the other end of the spectrum will force you to listen to everything and anything they can imagine. They will not allow zero'ing out. These people don't mind dropping the call if the customer doesn't get with the program.

There's people in the middle of this spectrum also.

Sometimes, federal/state/local law requires that certains anouncements must be played or certain conversations must be recorded or blah blah. Sometimes, it is applicable to one kind of business and not all. So it gets complicated. :)

Some IVRs as part of the OS, will just crash out and route you to a default queue if you keep pressing 0 like there's no tomorrow. But you may end up at the wrong queue and be put back in the correct queue.

Re:IVR Guide

[Anonymous Coward]

Total words typed: 121
Spelling mistakes: 1 (tought)
Error rate: 0.83%

Doesn't sound like anyone else can do better.

Re:IVR Guide

[Anonymous Coward]

I suspect his English is better than your Icelandic.

Re:IVR Guide

[vv2]

Do they realy, really want to though? There's a fairly good body of work being built up by people like John Seddon at http://www.lean-service.com/home.asp that shows how thinking from the customer's point of view, which often means getting skilled folk to answer the call quickly generally equals better service. In case anyone thinks this is rubbish (apologies - crap in american), there's a smallish company called Toyota that started this. Apparently it's doing rather well... ps. I've nothing to do with John's company, but I do think he's onto something

Re:IVR Guide

[lantenon]

You made a very good, but very subtle, point with your last statement, and I doubt you even realized it. If you did, kudos - if not, and for all those who likely missed it...

For many companies, customer service is dead (consumers don't need it).

We are no longer customers to many of the companies that are being brought up in this discussion. We are consumers - here only to purchase their goods and move on. The on-going relationship that exists between a customer and the company simply isn't there between a consumer and the company. (No, in my book, customer and consumer are not synonyms.)

Re:IVR Guide

[Artifakt]

We are no longer citizens to many of the politicians that are

• n't

being brought up in this discussion (until now). We are taxpayers - here only to contribute to their goals and move on.

What's frightening is that I can do the substitution above so easily.

The combination of the two is an ongoing reality. There are profound similarities between the loss of power and autonomy the average person is suffering from being treated as just a consumer by businesses and the losses that come from being just the arbitrary recipient of revokable granted rights by the government. Just because businesses, by themselves, can't implement Gulags, doesn't mean the real consequences of the consumerist attitude aren't enormously harmful.

Re:IVR Guide

[Artifakt]

Ouch, sorry about the missed tag there. That's supposed to be an aren't, and there's a couple of carriage returns or equivalents that aren't needed to parse the sentence. My profound appologies. If I wasn't so sleepy from all the Thanksgiving Triptophan that wasn't really in my turkey in sufficient amounts to explain it, I'd think of a good explanation.

Re:IVR Guide

[drsmithy]

And I do believe companies do want to provide real customer service, this whole phone system thing is merely herding clueless customers to designated areas [...]

Except (IME at least) it's completely pointless "herding". Typically, I find the first thing I have to do when I finally do get a person on the other end of the line, is just tell them the exact same things I've already "said".

It simply makes the already frustrating experience of dealing with an IVR even more so, when you have to repeat the exact same information you've just spent five minutes getting an IVR to understand, to the human you eventually end up talking to.

Re:IVR Guide

[HermanAB]

Yup, I think that MS Clippy will make a better IVR than most...

Re:IVR Guide

[Harker]

Here's hoping it's that special hell, reserved for child molesters and people who talk in theaters.

My most recent experience with T-Mobile's VRU system went pretty well, all things considered.

Voice: "Tell me what you want..." (it carries on for a bit, with options)
Me: "I'm going to cancel my phone account if I don't speak to a real person NOW"
Voice: "Please hold on, a representative will be with you shortly."

Short and to the point, plus, I don't have to worry about being rude to a mechanical voice. :P

Re:IVR Guide

[znu]

T-Mobile's phone support system is actually really nice. I called them a couple of months back, got a human fairly quickly, but in the middle of the conversation, the call dropped. Their system automatically called me back! And not only did it offer to let me talk to an agent then, it offered to let me schedule a callback for later, which I did. The callback came right on time, and offered an option to reschedule if the time wasn't convenient. When I got a rep on the line, he actually knew what I'd called about before, so whatever system they've got for logging customer calls seemed to be in good shape as well.

I guess T-Mobile needs this kind of thing more than most places, since presumably a lot of people calling their support line are calling from flaky cell phones, but really, why don't all these systems have this feature?

Re:IVR Guide

[Viol8]

" It is normal for a customer to initiate a project in January and be going live with an IVR application in December. It's a lot of work."

With the hopeless , unhelpful and frustrating mess they end up with you have to wonder why they bother spending the time and money. I've never yet used one of these systems that was even close to being as helpful as speaking to a person.

Re:IVR Guide

[vsprintf]

You made a very good, but very subtle, point with your last statement, and I doubt you even realized it.

I rarely make points I'm not aware of, especially alliterative, balanced counterpoints, but thanks for dissing me (and thanks for getting it). :)

Pergatory?

[sound vision]

You mean purgatory right?

Re:Pergatory?

[governorx]

Mispellings (yes there are multiple: if != is in english) aside, the biggest pain of automated voice is that a person (myself included) finds that they are wasting time because it takes so long to step through the menu.

This is because they try to make a universal system that is designed for the eldery, or as I prefer to call them: T H E S L O W .

Solution: Have an immediate option for quick speak or slow speak.. before any annoying greeting or advertising.

Re:Pergatory?

[Anonymous Coward]

He must be American ;)

Re:Pergatory?

[Anonymous Coward]

you must be new here...this is slashdot, and this is CmdrTaco posting. He really does mean "pergatory".

One pointless system to another

[Anonymous Coward]

Problem is, for some companies, once you connect to a human, all you get is someone reading off a flow chart.

I wish customer service wasn't dead....

Too bad...

[Red Samurai]

It only applies to those in the US. Maybe others should start working on lists for their own countries...

Re:Too bad...

[TheRaven64]

I've spent a lot of time on the 'phone to Apple customer services in the past few weeks (my Powerbook broke a bit, I sent it in, they fixed that bit but broke it more seriously - as in, it crashes after a few hours and refuses to reboot - I sent it in again, they tightened the hinges, but didn't make address the problem, I'm now waiting for them to take it in again, after they screwed up the UPS dispatch that was meant to collect it earlier this week). They answer the 'phone quite quickly, but then keep you on hold for ages after that. I recently got through to a (tech support) human in under five minutes, and was then put on hold for 50 minutes (at 10p/minute national rate) while they tried to escalate me to a customer servicse person (they failed, said they would call me back, but never did...).

Just because you've through to a human doesn't mean that you're through waiting.

Re:Too bad...

[petermgreen]

by national rate do you mean 0870, i hate those things they may be the same as national rate from a BT landline with no discount plans but from anything else they can be significantly more expensive.

sometimes its worth checking their site to see if they list a normal geograpical number anywhere (e.g. pipex list it as "for those calling from outside of the uk")

customer service?

[Anonymous Coward]

> maybe the big companies will finally get a clue and start providing real customer service again

maybe they will disable the shortcuts

Choose now..

[Anne Thwacks]

for a blow on the head with a blunt object press 1,

for a poke in the eye with a sharp stick press 2

...

for another menu of annoying options, press 9.

Re:Choose now..

[moranar]

As always, Penny Arcade has something to say on the matter.

Re:Choose now..

[(H)elix1]

Ah the fun with IVR systems. We pulled a gag a few years back, with instructions to press '11' to complain after a long and twisty path. The user would press '1' twice, which would route them to an error message stating they pressed '1' which is not a valid menu entry and start them all over from scratch.

Re:Choose now..

[Elad Alon]

No way am I pressing 9!

Not all evil

[lurch84]

Generally speaking, yes automated tech support systems suck. I've used a few though that didn't actually try to solve my problem, but rather just wanted to figure out what my problem was so it could send it off to the appropriate branch of tech support. The voice recognition ones worked especially well in that purpose. And in cases like these if your problem falls into one of those hard-to-classify areas, the system dishes you off to a representative right away, rather than having to go through 4 levels of menus just to hit '0'.

Then again, maybe I'm the exception

Re:Not all evil

[Stevyn]

I hate the voice commands when they're asking you to say a number. The system only works some of the time while pressing the damn button always works.

Companies should spend more time trying to improve customer service. A lot of companies people deal with on a daily basis have no stores or salesman. The only interaction between the customers and the company is through customer service. As more industries sell items that might as well be a commodity, what will separate them in the future is loyalty brought on by good customer service.

Re:Not all evil

[oberondarksoul]

The first time I've actually encountered a voice recognition menu was yesterday, trying to get through to UPS's support, and it was sufficiently confused by my voice as to send me straight to a real person on the other end. Perhaps I'll just 'accidentally' mangle it whenever I use one of these systems again?

Re:Not all evil

[jacksonj04]

The BT customer service (UK, so all you foreigners may not understand some of what I'm on about) is brilliant. If there's a free rep, you press the 'get me a human being' option, or you hung up midway through a previous call, then you get connected directly to a human.

If not, you get the automated system which covers every option under the sun and deals with things automatically. Whilst reporting a phone fault, all you had to do was key in the appropriate number and the system automatically line tested, decided there was a problem, requested an engineer and even let me set up a free call diversion to the number of my choice without once involving a real person.

When used properly automated systems can cut costs and make things easier for the customer and the company. When used badly, they just get on people's nerves. A quick "Which department do you want?" from an automated system is, in my mind, preferable to getting a real human who then switches you between departments.

Re:Not all evil

[whoniverse]

The BT customer service (UK, so all you foreigners may not understand some of what I'm on about) is brilliant. If there's a free rep, you press the 'get me a human being' option, or you hung up midway through a previous call, then you get connected directly to a human.

I have never come across that option, and I have called BT customer service many many times. I guess that must mean that they almost never have an operator free. What is also annoying is those call centres based overseas where the human being doesn't understand you properly and you can't understand them because of the accent. I'm not sure which irritates me more.

Re:Not all evil

[Kadin2048]

I'm not sure about UPS, but at least on Amtrak's and several other voice-controlled menu systems, you can say "Operator" at almost anytime and be directed to a human. That's what I do every time I call -- as soon as I hear that "Hi, I'm [insert name], [insert company]'s automated agent!" I just start saying "I want to talk to an operator" over and over. Usually I get one pretty quickly.

I've actually gotten to prefer the voice agent systems more than the standard button-pushing ones, just because they're more easily broken out of. However if this "loophole" gets closed off, I could really get to hate them.

Re:Not all evil

[jacksonj04]

Ugh, overseas call centres.

I only heard the "get me a human" option last time I called, so I thought it was just a new feature. Perhaps it's just hit-and-miss depending on how long queues are / how many operators are free.

Re:Not all evil

[Dracophile]

Then again, maybe I'm the exception Assuming the IVR menu is sensible, that's how it ought to be. I answer calls that come through an IVR,and, while I think that it could be done a little better, I find that quite a few people just don't listen to the menu options

Re:Not all evil

[TheDauthi]

Personally, though all of the menus at our company are still DTMF [key-based], I think you've hit on it. If the system is well designed, the customer is more likely to use it.

If you call our company, it asks for the last 4 digits of your account number (for verification against your telephone number), or pound to look up your account. (if your number isn't on file, there is a "enter the entire thing menu or look it up, instead") If you fail to enter a number, transfer the call. The next menu has, as the very first option, to transfer to a CSR. The other options are to listen to your balance, close your account, remove late fees, request a refund, get payment address, close your account... 90% of the things you're calling about.

Our call completion rate for our IVR customer service is just over 70%. [90% from the 'enter-last-4', but I recently found a bug where the numbers were old...] I occasionally have customers transferred to me to compliment the system.

No, it works even if the IVR is able to solve your problem; it just has to be well designed enough to not be too intrusive.

Re:Not all evil

[ceoyoyo]

I don't know if Telus' still does, but last time I encountered it their automated agent just sent you to marketing if it couldn't understand you. After waiting on hold for two hours for tech support:

TELUS: "Hi, I'm Amy! I'm an automated agent. What can I do for you?"

ME: "You've got to be kidding."

TELUS: "I heard that you'd like to be transfered to marketing!"

TELUS: "Hello, would you like to buy our caller ID blocker unblocker blocker unblocker?"

I always find...

[verbnoun]

...the best way to get through to a human is to call their toll free number. They're not so interested in keeping me on hold when they're paying for it.

Re:I always find...

[Anonymous Coward]

the best way to get through to a human is to call their toll free number. They're not so interested in keeping me on hold when they're paying for it.

Not true. The cost of long distance service is very cheap:

Even if the company pays 5 cents per minute (which is very high) for toll-free service, the cost to keep someone on hold is 60 x 0.05 = $3.00 per hour. Most tech support monkeys in the US make more than that. And if you're paying 3 cents per minute, the cost is $1.80 per hour.

Tech support costs less overseas, but I don't know how much.

Sure thing...

[CapnGrunge]

First, PHBs will always consider tech support an expense. so they will easily cheap out and exploit the most out of the least IT monkeys. Been there :)

Voice menu cuts expenses. In addition, tech monkeys will probably not have to guide step by step the granny that doesn't know how to configure her outlook.

Now there are customers that will happily hang you on line for hours just so their problem be solved quickly; don't even think of telling the customer that the problem is somewhere else.

As long as terms and limits of service are established and understood by both parties, you'll get poor service and support jobs will always be underpaid.

Re:Sure thing...

[CapnGrunge]

As long as terms and limits of service aren't established and understood by both parties...

A Rather Clean List

[skoryky]

I think I read somewhere that on some voice menu systems, a swear word will get you connected to a human. I definitely tried it once, and it did indeed work.

Re:A Rather Clean List

[TubeSteak]

They've been trying out new voice recognition technologies that do stress analysis and if you sound pissed off, you get sent to a cust rep sooner rather than later.

So, while I don't know about swearing, I think its likely that might work on the newer systems.

What I'd really like is the option to turn off their mind numbing Muzak
Please press Star (*) to disable Muzak

Re:A Rather Clean List

[Basehart]

"I think I read somewhere that on some voice menu systems, a swear word will get you connected to a human. I definitely tried it once, and it did indeed work."

Cool, so all we need to do is say "fuck" in Bengali, Gujarati, Hindi, Kashmiri, Kannada, Konkani, Malayalam, Marathi, Oriya, Punjabi, Sindhii, Tamill, Telugu and Urdu.

Re:A Rather Clean List

[JockAMundo]

>What I'd really like is the option to turn off their mind numbing Muzak
> Please press Star (*) to disable Muzak


I haven't had a chance to call Crystal Decisions for some time, but in the late 90's they had the option to pick what type type of muzak you wanted.

Anyone know if this is still available?

Re:A Rather Clean List

[TheRaven64]

Considering how scrupulously polite the Indian stereotype is, you probably need to say 'fornicate' instead.

Re:A Rather Clean List

[Elminst]

When I was doing pc and printer repair, there was one company, I think it was Matsushita or panasonic, that actally let you CHOOSE the music you wanted to listen to while on hold.
They had like 7 options, ranging from countyry, pop, classical, rock, easy listening, and i think "mood music".

I actually enjoyed being on hold with them.

Re:A Rather Clean List

[Anonymous Coward]

ROFL. How long before the RIAA sues them?

Press 1 for drum & bass, 2 for goa, 3 for trip-hop, 4 for house, 5 for crunk...

Re:A Rather Clean List

[Anonymous Coward]

The voice sysem for my cell phone provider (Telus Mobility) will actually hang up on you if you swear at the phone system lady. The first time you swear she says "I'm sorry we seem to be having trouble understanding each other" and the next time you swear she basically says the same thing and the system hangs up on you. Needless to say, that response only made me angrier, although it's hard for me to despise Telus any more than I already do. Worst company ever.

Re:A Rather Clean List

[Clover_Kicker]

I remember when WordPerfect was it's own company, and they had a DJ who babbled in between songs.

Re:A Rather Clean List

[Pig27]

Swear words worked at the dominant telco in Australia, Telstra for a while. Now they don't any more. Nor does getting upset work any more.

Re:A Rather Clean List

[ceoyoyo]

The Muzak is fantastic compared to the ad every ten seconds. Music, music... person talking... oh, no, not someone answering. Just an ad. Guess what? I don't want to buy anything more from you until you've fixed the problem I'm having with what I already bought!

Re:A Rather Clean List

[Baricom]

I saw a TV documentary once on a music-on-hold DJ for a fairly well-known company (sadly, I don't remember which company). You could break out of the hold queue to request a song, and when you returned, you'd keep your place in line.

Re:A Rather Clean List

[cerberusss]

a swear word will get you connected to a human

It's much more advanced. The voice menu system will try to match whatever you say against the company directory.

You: *grumbles* Freaking shit *dials number* System: Press 1 for blah, 2 for blahblah, 3 for --
You: Awwww MOTHERFUCKING SHIT
System: ... *connects through*
Brian: This is Marty Fockershat speaking, how can I help you?

Great

[opusman]

Now if only they had a way to get to a human that wasn't in a call centre in India...

Re:Great

[crabpeople]

its ok. they dont want to take your calls either.

"Das, who quit the job after four months, said she learned to dislike Americans. "Rarely, there are people who are good," she said by e-mail, "but then others remind me that all they believe in is cursing, and they don't have respect for others.""

two sides to every coin my friend

Re:Great

[SilicaiMan]

Now if only they had a way to get to a human that wasn't in a call centre in India...

Why? You will receive the same crappy service no matter who you talk to.

Re:Great

[Seumas]

Yeah, I'll remember to feel sorry for her next time I'm in a cab driven by someone from her country who treats his fares like shit.

Oh, by the way, as people are frequent to tell Americans who complain about their tech jobs - "If you don't like it, find another job, bitch". And apparently, she did.

Re:Great

[opusman]

Possibly but at least I'll have a chance of understanding what they're saying.

Re:Great

[ClickOnThis]

Now if only they had a way to get to a human that wasn't in a call centre in India...

Actually, my experience (as a Sprint PCS customer) with call centres in India has been positive. It's the workers in the US who are clueless. I'm not sure if this is still the case, but it was a couple of years ago. Since then I have been more reluctant to call customer service because the wait times can be ridiculous.

Re:Great

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, many of them are up here in urban areas of Canada (mostly the west coast & Toronto)... where we have a high population of people from south Asia. If the person answers with "how she goin' dere boy?" it's one of the east-coast callcentres.

Re:Great

[sapgau]

Wow, ever thought of re-directing their anger to the CEOs and Managers who took the decision to outsource those jobs in the first place?

Re:Great

[Anonymous Coward]

"how she goin' dere boy?"???

Indeed....

Gawd... you sir, are clueless.

Re:Great

[Kadin2048]

Yeah, I agree with this. While I'm not necessarily a fan of the whole third-world-outsourcing phenomenon in general, just because you get someone in a call center in Calcutta or Bangalore doesn't mean that the service is going to be any worse than it would if you got someone in America. And based on my experience, their English is often better, and they're loads more polite.

My latest experience was with Comcast, which does have a U.S.-based call center, and I found the reps to be obnoxious, rude, and prone to lie through their teeth. They seem to be trained to tell you anything, no matter how ridiculous, just to get you off of the phone. And the clincher is that sometimes when you call back, another rep will reveal some of the "notes" that previous reps make in your file, which in my case made it quite plain that the procedure that I had been told to go through was complete BS and that they never had any intention of solving my problem. And when I asked to speak to a manager, they hung up on me.

Now I'm not saying that there aren't obnoxious, rude, lying creeps in foreign-outsourced call centers as well (or that there aren't intelligent, helpful, easily understood people here in the States), but to date I've never run into any in my calls to India that were half as bad as some of the lowlifes that seem to be filling the desks at some U.S. based ones.

However this might not be a totally fair comparison, since most of the U.S. callcenters I've experienced were billing or pure "customer service," while the outsourced ones were mostly technical.

Re:Great

[Anonymous Coward]

On a business trip to Hyderabad India I had my Amex card denied. When I called customer service from India, I got a call center in Houston, TX!

Re:Great

[mixmasterjake]

Wow, Indian call center workers are getting the impression that Americans don't like talking to them? How could they have possibly gotten that idea?

Sounds like there is only one side to this coin, my friend.

Re:Great

[Anonymous Coward]

two sides to every coin my friend

Indeed. Whatever possessed these people to think they could man phone support centers for English-speaking people? Who's disrespectful here?

Oh wait, I forgot, I guess it's not P.C. to point out their inability to be understood, isn't it...

Re:Great

[ignavus]

Now if only I could read Slashdot without getting posts from rednecks in America.

Or do you only object to prejudice when it is directed at you?

Re:Great

[megrims]

Uh, I think he's an Aussie.

Re:Great

[Eskarel]

Personally, while talking to India pisses me off no end. What annoys me most on tech support calls to companies like Dell and HP is the fact that no one believes I'm a technician and I have to spend an hour convincing the jackass that there actually is a problem with the hardware, so that they'll send someone out.

Dell is actually pretty good about this believe it or not, you only usually have to argue with them once and they'll send out a local tech who is nice and courteous and fixes the problem promptly and effectively. I'd rather talk to someone local in the first place, but that's better than nothing. I've admitedly had a few problems with dell, like them shipping my employer a replacement monitor 5 times before they got it right. Three of those times it was worse than the original and once it was the wrong size, but otherwise Dell hasn't been too bad. If you use their e-mail support system and can spell you don't even really have a communicaton problem.

HP on the other hand is hopeless, You've usually got to call them multiple times before they'll even believe there's a problem, then they'll try to convince you that it's your fault(had a user who photocopied a book, and they tried to convince me that because she'd done that she'd damaged the scanner assembly and it was her fault), and the last time a guy came out he was late, and spent most of the time whinging about how he hadn't had anywhere to park, which isn't my problem as they don't actually give me anywhere free to park and there are plenty of available spots in the public parking garage.

Re:Great

[Anonymous Coward]

Will you just fucking stop believing that it's unimportant what the rest of the world thinks of us? People like you are getting us all killed.

Re:Great

[Seumas]

Actuall, this isn't a troll. It's a proper observation. People are dicks. People are dicks to you in a lot of jobs. You don't have to be Indian or in another country or "taking an American job" to be treated poorly. Ask anyone in a service job and I'm sure they'll tell you of frequent abuse and mistreatment and hateful comments. It has nothing to do with being a foreign chick from a foreign call center "taking an American job". It just happens to be the most readily available thing to pick on for the insult. If it was someone in a call center in San Francisco, or Atlanta, the customers who say that sort of thing to the person on the other line would be insulting and harassing them, too - they'd just be picking something else to attack them about.

And guess what? If you don't like it - seriously get another fucking job.

Re:Great

[Baricom]

Wow, ever thought of re-directing their anger to the CEOs and Managers who took the decision to outsource those jobs in the first place?

Yes. The call center worker refused to transfer me.

Seriously.

I think I've been completely polite and respectful when I get a call center employee named "David" with a strong foreign accent. I've never said they were rat eaters or stealing American jobs. In fact, I'm pretty happy that they're making a successful living.

The fact remains that I simply cannot remember the last time I spoke to a competent employee in a call center, regardless of where the call was answered.

Re:Great

[IAmATuringMachine!]

Indeed, he said "call centre." A redneck wouldn't be able to spell "call."

Re:Great

[sapgau]

I agree with you, I was commenting on the article and I wondered why hasn't there been more attacks to the corporations themselves (not just the poor employee that is powerless to make a change). I think it's never a good thing when you start pissing off your customers.

0.02

Re:Great

[Nf1nk]

Pissing off the employee is making a change. Each time some peon, even if he is in India or Arkansas, quits due to abuse he must be replaced. Low level low paying jobs require training, and training costs money.
I felt this way about telemarketers, collection agency folks, those guys who serve notices, they all work for shitheads, and therefore deserve all the hell I can dish out.
Recently it was decided that at work we would call some new 800 number to solve our difficult issues, when I found that the lady in east Texas, was of no use and didn't have access to the information. I yelled at her, it was her departments job to fix these issues and she didn't have the basic information I needed. I hope she hates her job because of people like me and quits.

Re:Great

[chri]

Perhaps this woman is negatively disposed towards Americans because every American she has had contact with just spent an infuriating half hour attempting to navigate a labyrinthine series of menu choices.

Re:Great

[Anonymous Coward]

I find it amusing that techies never complained about outsourcing of manufacturing jobs to China (which has had a larger societal impact on the US-- both good and bad), but when its outsoucing of our tech jobs (a far smaller phenomenon in total jobs lost), we complain like hell. Yeah, I too lost my job. But the point is to move on. Change and shit happens. That's life. Roll with the good and bad.

The point is don't lose your humanity over it. They're people too. The America I grew up in knew that once; I hope we're not forgetting that.

Brilliant!

[txsslim]

Thank You!

I can handle a reasonably constructed...

[arrrrg]

...automated phone system. Sure, they are infuriating when they are designed to waste your time, but the real problem is that in general companies try to give customers the runaround instead of providing real customer support. I can't even count the number of times I have been "accidentally" hung up on while being transferred (by a human) when complaining about being overcharged. I once had to call my insurance company (United Healthcare) over FIFTY times to get them to drop a bogus $1000 charge, which was due to a computer glitch in their system. They operate on the principle that if they make it hard enough to get what you want, you will eventually get frustrated and give up. The problem is that it's extremely difficult to hold them accountable for this behaviour, since they mask it in a thin veil of (partially?) feigned incompetence.

Re:I can handle a reasonably constructed...

[superpulpsicle]

Most companies like to have a tiny support team, maybe 10 people. Then load the sales support and eng team with 30 people. This is an unfortunate sad trend in the US corporate world today. Everybody wants to make money off you upfront, but nobody gives a flying fuck about the product satisfaction 2 years later.

Re:I can handle a reasonably constructed...

[Anonymous Coward]

Computer glitch? HAHAHA. That's code for "someone fucked up".

Re:I can handle a reasonably constructed...

[Anonymous Coward]

Because by your 50th call, they realized that the cost of answering the calls of "this crazy guy on the line" would soon exceed the $1000 you were complaining about.

I don't mind them.

[superdude72]

A return to some mythical golden age when you could call customer service and a highly qualified person would pick up the phone and solve your problem instantly, for no charge, is NOT going to happen, for reasons that should be obvious.

I don't mind automated systems, most of the time. Given the choice between waiting 10 minutes for a human to take my call, and an automated system instantly picking up, I'll take the latter. 90 percent of the time, the automated system is perfectly adequate, and a lot of times, it's better.

What I *hate* is when the system tries to hide the fact that human customer service is available. A little while ago, I needed to have FedEx recall a shipment I sent. This was not something I could do via the automated system, but the system didn't tell me how to reach an operator, nor did anything on FedEx's Web site that I could see. After fumbling around the system for 10 minutes or so, a thought occurred to me: "Hey, what happens if I hit '0'?"

This worked. A disaster was averted. Would it have killed FedEx to make it clear this choice is available?

Re:I don't mind them.

[Randall_Jones]

90 percent of the time, the automated system is perfectly adequate

What? Personally--and I think this is true for most people--I never subject myself to a corporate bureacracy and automated phone menu maze unless something exceptionally terrible and out of the ordinary has happened (e.g., an overcharge or contested charge, a conflict regarding whether something that just broke is still under warranty, etc.), these are things a phone menu can't handle, and almost anything a phone menu can handle can be accomplished with less pain on the internet or by mail (paying a bill, changing your address, signing up for/canceling service, etc.).

90% of the time there's no specific option for whatever I'm trying to accomplish and I'm stuck suffering through an irrelevant menu SLOWLY repeated multiple times before I may be forwarded to a human or, just as likely, disconnected.

Re:I don't mind them.

[TheRaven64]

It depends a lot on the company you are interacting with. My hosting company is a small business. If I have a problem, I can email or bing-bong the CEO or the CTO, and they fix it. Not only do they fix it, but they fix it quickly, efficiently, and politely, and if it's their fault then they tend to offer a refund. Last month they had a system failure which caused them to overbill me slightly for bandwidth (a power distributor blew, and it broke the machine doing the bandwidth accounting). Their response to an email was to refund the entire month's hosting bill, upgrade my limit from 20GB to 50GB at no extra cost, and apologise.

Good customer support does exist, you just need to look a bit harder. Ironically, the reason I picked this company was purely cost - if they can undercut their competition and still provide that good customer service then they must be doing something right.

At the other end of the spectrum is Orange. I recently tried to upgrade my mobile and contract with them (my old one had reached the end of its term), and found that they wouldn't allow me to do so - the offer was open to new customers, but people who were existing customers weren't eligible. They suggested that I switch to a pre-pay (no contract) plan, and then I would be eligible. I suggested that they had two alternatives - they could either give me the same terms as a new customer (and make a smaller profit than if they charged me what they wanted to), or I could go next door to their competitor and get a similar deal from them (in which case they make nothing). They called my bluff, and discovered that I was serious. I now have a shiny new Series 60 'phone, a new contract (for half the price of my old one) with twice as much talk time and ten times as much data.

The key to getting good customer service is for enough people to be willing to walk away from a company that is not providing it.

Re:I don't mind them.

[fact0r]

The key to getting good customer service is for enough people to be willing to walk away from a company that is not providing it.

The other key to getting good customer service is to ensure you are always trying to obtain service at a time you have leverage over the company. In the capatalist system you are stupid to believe you will (or should) get something for nothing (even if you have previously paid for it)!

Warranty and post-sales service is in conflict with the idea of market forces / trade / barter / etc. You want something out of the company - what are they getting out of you (not what they have already got out of you)? When looking to get post-sales service it helps to be a business that can pull $50,000 / year worth of purchases from the supplier if they try to screw you -- or not to have paid for it yet.

If the business can make more money in the short to medium term by screwing the customer or at least pissing them off ... then why wouldn't they?!

Taking suppliers to task under consumer protection legislation is a slightly painful process (but something I will always do if it's the only way to ensure I don't get screwed!). It is much better to ensure you have some commercial/financial leverage over them whenever you need something from them (and - while being friendly - ensure that they do realise why they want to help you).

Re:I don't mind them.

[SeaFox]

I don't mind automated systems, most of the time. Given the choice between waiting 10 minutes for a human to take my call, and an automated system instantly picking up, I'll take the latter. 90 percent of the time, the automated system is perfectly adequate, and a lot of times, it's better.

I agree, I find automated systems okay for the most part, provided they are well designed. Many people prefer them when doing financial transactions with companies, as they feel more secure typing their credit card number into the keypad for an IVR than telling it to a CSR. Sometimes I actually prefer an automated system, I guess becuase some numbers I've called have such clueless reps on the phones I find I know more about the company and it's products than the rep does (kinda like shopping at Best Buy).

What bothers me is when automated systems

1. Don't have a plainly labeled option for speaking with an operator within the first three levels of the system. Some situations are far more quickly handled if they can just be explained to a human being. I recently tried to call my insurance company to find out if I could get reimbursed for my flu shot and couldn't get any information as the automated system didn't tell me and had to option to just talk to a person.
   
2. When they don't offer 'back to previous menu' option. The automated system I use to chage options on my voicemail has no way to back up in some areas. So the only way to get to the previous section is to hang up and call back into the system (adding extra cell phone minutes to the call).
   

Re:I don't mind them.

[andymadigan]

I had to call FedEx a while ago. It's an IVR, but if you look around on there website there is a little thing you can print out that has the number shortcuts for all the voice options. I think either 9 or 0 is indeed "representative."

Re:I don't mind them.

[TheDauthi]

Yes, this is dumb.

There are legitimate times where you know the system isn't going to help. Or where you simply think that the IVR isn't going to help, even.

The first option in every customer-facing IVR having more than one menu that I write is a way to get to a CSR [Admittedly, maybe after asking for account info, if I'm 90% positive you have it - it helps us route your call a lot. Ex, if you have a pending problem, I can transfer you right to the person who worked on it last, or a supervisor.]. It might stick you in a lower priority in the queue (Depends on how important it is to have your account info.), but I advertise, "Press 0 to get out of here" or "Say agent for a CSR".

To reach a customer support representative...

[Animats]

Left, Up, Left, Left, A, B, Y, Select, Start

Re:To reach a customer support representative...

[Anonymous Coward]

Um... I believe the cheat code for Contra (for NES) was: up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, b, a, b, a, start. :)

Re:To reach a customer support representative...

[nubbie]

Almost, it was:

up, up, down, down, left, righ, left, right, b, a, start (1-player)
up, up, down, down, left, righ, left, right, b, a, select, start (2-player)

Re:To reach a customer support representative...

[SuiteSisterMary]

At the 'Honor' screen, put in: ABACABB.

Re:To reach a customer support representative...

[jZnat]

What game is this LULLABY code from? I think using the Konami code would've been more appropriately cliche'd for this matter.

Re:To reach a customer support representative...

[Anonymous Coward]

AHA! Your technique belies your age... but for us TRUE elders, it's UUDDLRLRABAB Select Start.

Young whipper snappers and your Y's, X's, turbos and rumble packs. Back in our day, the most we would get is five continues and a maxed out health bar.

Re:To reach a customer support representative...

[DigiShaman]

That code gives you 30 extra lives in the NES game Contra. Too bad it doesn't work in real life. Given the wait times for tech support these days, you will need those 30 lifetimes.

Re:To reach a customer support representative...

[phoenix_rizzen]

And to reach a human being who can actually solve your problem:
up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, b, a, select, start.

Re:To reach a customer support representative...

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

Erm... Didn't you just do a super-jumping-tiger-uppercut-combo and kill him? :-/

Re:To reach a customer support representative...

[Sathias]

I just type in IDSPISPOPD then walk through the customer support system's walls.

Re:To reach a customer support representative...

[jshackney]

I think that was NES Life Force. Or maybe both, I didn't like Contra.

Re:To reach a customer support representative...

[archeopterix]

Left, Up, Left, Left, A, B, Y, Select, Start

... right, right, hold punch - Fatality!

Pergatory? Um, yeah

[broken]

Get out of spelling pergatory... Get an automated spell checker already! =)

Re:Pergatory? Um, yeah

[Anonymous Coward]

Pergatory...isn't that where you get your Pergo flooring materials?

Let me guess...

[Anonymous Coward]

Butterball put you on hold? ;)

You get what you pay for.

[Anonymous Coward]

People are cheap, and they won't pay for good service, so they get cheap service. What's the news here?

Just in case it gets slashdotted

[Anonymous Coward]

My comment on this is that it is sad that people have to resort to these steps to get service these days. This is what happens when we lets the suits decide that it is more important to spend company funds making more executives millionaires and less money giving people customer service. The rick are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer.

finance phone steps to find a human

American Express 800-528-4800 0
ATT Universal 800-950-5114 ###
Bank of America 800-900-9000 1 loan; 2 account; 3 investing; 4 info; or 00 to human
Bank One 877-226-5663 0,0
Capital One Visa 800-867-0904 ignore prompts and invalid entry warnings; press #0 four times
Charles Schwab 800-435-9050 3 then 0
Chase 800-CHASE24 5 pause 1 4
CitiBank 800-374-9700 1 online support; 2 billpay; 3 non-online; 4 credit card; or 0 to human
Discover 800-347-2683 ****
E-Trade 800-387-2331 ####
Fidelity 800-544-6666 ignore prompt for social security number, just enter ###
MasterCard 800-MC-ASSIST 000 on each menu
MBNA 800-421-2110 00# when menu starts
Paypal 650 864-8000 cf http://paypalsucks.com/PayPalPhoneNumbers.shtml
Sovereign Bank 800-SOV-BANK 1 english; 1 personal; 3 then social#; passcode, #; then 0 (1-3x)
Sun Trust Banks 404-588-7815 Yes
US Bank 800-US BANKS 0000
Visa 800-847-2911 000 (ignore prompts saying that it's an invalid entry)
Wachovia 800-922-4684 accounts personal banking
Washington Mutual 800-756-8000 At any time after the announcement(s) press 0,0.
Wells Fargo 800-869-3557 0,0,0
Western Union 800-325-6000 * then ##

government phone steps to find a human

INS 800-375-5283 After selecting English, (with a 2 second delay between) 2 6 2 4
Social Security 800-772-1213 00 will confuse computer and send you to an agent
Veterans Affairs 800-827-1000 1,0

insurance phone steps to find a human

Aetna 800-537-9384 "2, then say ""operator"" (check this)"
Aetna 800-680-3566 * then 0 anytime
AFLAC 800-99-AFLAC ***
Ameritas 800-745-1112 0,0,0
CIGNA 800-516-2898 REGARDING A BILL
Cigna 800-849-9000 ##
GEICO 800-841-3000 Wait for prompt then 6, 1, 5
Humana 800-4-HUMANA After entering insurance number and details, 0.
Medicare 800-633-4227 "After the opening prompt say ""agent""."
Principal Life 800-247-4695 1 for english, 2, then 0 several times until it redirects you to an operator.

pharmacy phone steps to find a human

CVS local listing dial local store, after promt. press 6 will connect to store manager
Eckerd 800-eckerds 0 for pharmacy, 8* for manager
Rite Aid Local Store Press 3 to speak to the pharmacy
Walgreens local store 0 for a pharmacy employee
products phone steps to find a human
Bose 800-444-2673 Direct to human!
Sonos 800-680-2345 1 sales; 2 support
Sony 800-222-7669 "When prompted by the automated voice system to answer ANY questions, just say ""Agent"""

retail phone steps to find a human

Advance Auto 800-314-4243 0 when the automated message begins
Amazon.com 800-201-7575 Direct to human!
Best Buy 800-365-0292 00*
Best Buy local store wait for extension prompt (sometimes must 4), then ext. 2021
Circuit City local store 0 for customer service or 218 for store manager
eBay 800-322-9266 0,0
Home Depot 800 677-0232 "When asked for account number, keep hitting ""#"". After 5 or 6 times, a human appears!"
Home Shopping Net 800-284-3100 0
Ikea 800 434-IKEA "0000000 (hit ""0"" many times fast, if you do it once, or too slow, it will merely repea

No way will this work

[syousef]

Say there are 5 real human operators at the end of the line, and everyone uses these little tricks to get hold of them. Well you're still not going to get to a human more quickly. You'll either be put on hold for a much longer period of time, or be told to call back. The company still isn't going to hire more people, you're just clogging it up for thoese that genuninely need to interact with a human being because what they want to do is not one of the standard menu options.

Re:No way will this work

[iamacat]

Well, the company is not going to care until the 5 human operators start to process account cancelation requests non-stop. Then they will either go under or open a big customer service call center in Bay Area (where else can you find people who speak without an accent but can understand every one else perfectly?).

I always genuinely need to interact with a human being. It's the company's job to know their product and mine to just use it. I am going to explain what I want in natural language and THEY can figure out which department it belongs to and what's my account number.

AT&T Wireless had to be the worst ever!!

[Basehart]

Throughout 2003 and 2004 I had a cellphone account with AT&T Wireless here in Seattle.

Everytime my bill would show up with more charges than I expected (i.e. every month) I'd call the 800 number and would have to listen to many many many minutes of a woman with a croaky "I'm so up-beat and busy I'm losing my voice" voice talk about all the really great services that AT&T Wireless had to offer, all put to some jangly disgusting up-beat "boy band" pop soundtrack.

They used the same voice and music for almost two years and I swear it nearly drove me insane.

The problem was there was no way to avoid having to listen to croaky becuase you had to listen attentively for a human to pick up the call and feebly attempt to fix the problem.

Sometimes I'd have to listen to this stuff for 20 or thirty minutes at a time.

There is a happy ending however. AT&T Wireless got bought by Cingular and the croaky voice, and music, have gone forever because all the bugs with my bill seem to have been fixed so I don't have to call anymore.

Thank you to whoever fixed my bill.

Re:AT&T Wireless had to be the worst ever!!

[Agret]

2 Years? I would've just switched by then...

Just Wait

[lazarus]

Most systems will drop you to an operator after assuming that you have a pulse-dial phone if you just ignore all of their prompts. You may have to wait for them to repeat your menu choices a couple of times before this happens.

I typically find this is faster than trying to sort through their menus.

Re:Just Wait

[halcyon1234]

Most systems will drop you to an operator after assuming that you have a pulse-dial phone if you just ignore all of their prompts. You may have to wait for them to repeat your menu choices a couple of times before this happens.

Except that the article is about VOICE based systems, not keypad systems. If you have a rotary phone, you can still use the voice feature. Doing nothing makes the system assume you've hung up, and it will hang up on you.

Re:Just Wait

[Anonymous Coward]

RTFA. It says nothing about voice-based systems. Also, many voiced based systems will push you through for just waiting, and you can always just try talking in another language to the voice based system if it doesn't push you through.

Pergatory???

[Anonymous Coward]

Pergatory: a state of suffering or misery in Perga, ancient city S Asia Minor in Pamphylia

Look at Amazon.com on the list....

[Anonymous Coward]

I work for them, and it warms my heart to see this:

Amazon.com 800-201-7575 Direct to human!

So folks, you have a problem, Amazon is ready to listen... :)

Re:Look at Amazon.com on the list....

[saskboy]

"Direct to human!"

Trying to scare your customers off eh? It's really mind blowing to have to watch your tounge as soon as the line is answered, instead of starting into the default blue streak about how you can never speak to a human when you call one of those darned lines.

How I'd love to hear a tape of customer's first words to a help line that no one but the switchboard hears...

Re:Look at Amazon.com on the list....

[Browncoat]

The funny thing about Overstock.com is that I went through their maze of automated options but it only took a few seconds and I got to a person right away, who was more than happy to fix my problems.

I recently had a problem with my cell phone and when I called Verizon, I made 4 button pushes and got to a human. They put me on hold for about 8 minutes but when I did get a human, they were helpful.

I really dislike Samsung's tech support though...they didn't know their own technology and told ME that I had broken the phone I had only had for one afternoon and that the NEW transflash card I bought for the phone was broken. So basically when their phone doesn't work, it must be my fault because I turned it on and expected it to work properly.

The Worst

[Anonymous Coward]

My vote for the worst system is United Airlines. They have voice recognition which is a good thing, but no option to press the buttons and select by tone.

What happens is if you try to call the United line from a noisy place, say an airport, it picks up all the background noise and gets completely confused. It takes about 5 minutes of it getting bad responses before it actually drops you to a person.

Re:The worst

[Basehart]

FYI that's not the worst, but my guess is you get connected to the debt department if you enter an account number which is delinquent or whatever, thereby bypassing the beleaguered support folks.

Re:The Worst

[utlemming]

The worst thing about the voice recognition is if you are angry. Because then the voice reconigtion software doesn't do the greatest job. Nothing like Sprints. "LET ME TALK TO SOME @#$@#$ PERSON! NOW !#E!#$ IT." And then the computer says, "Hang, on while I connect you to 'automated bill payment'."

Re:The worst

[AgentX24]

Why implement such a system?

To encourage people to have their account numbers ready for when they actually talk to a person to save on time wasted?

Re:The worst

[Scoth]

There's no reason the customer support agents couldn't be provided the entered information. I've worked in three call centers now with a variety of software of phone systems throughout the years, and all of them had the ability to present us with information about the callers. Caller ID information, which phone tree options they'd chosen, account numbers and such can be made available to the agents easily. Having a customer dial it in, especially if it's long, then asking for it again is silly. My bank has a 15-digit acct number and they used to do this. I called recently and they didn't, and I'm glad.

Re:The worst

[Phroggy]

A DSL ISP I used to work for would ask customers to enter their DSL phone number, and that was the first thing we'd ask for when answering the phone as well. Why? Because more often than not, the software to automatically pop up their account info didn't work. Why? Because the company spent bajillions of dollars contracting somebody the CEO played golf with (or something) to build the software, and it would have cost bajillions more to get them to fix it.

Re:The worst

[SeaFox]

The automated message has me enter in my account number before having me directed to the correct operator. At that point the guy (or girl) at the other end asks me for my account number. It drives me nuts....Why implement such a system?

The phone system might have been set up for software that doesn't exist anymore or is not used in all locations. I worked for a company where this happened. The phone system asked you for the phone number on the account and then I asked them for the same thing. When the company decides to outsource support, sometimes the systems they have set up to automatically transfer that info to the answering agent does not work. They also sometimes change accounting software and break compatability. Many times the bureaucracy of the company keeps the loose ends from being tied up. So the system continues to ask for account info when nobody uses it because they don't want to hassle with changing the phone system.

Also, some automated systems will tell the customer if they are in an outage or not if they recognise the customer as being in an effected area from their account information. This cuts down on reps getting 50 phone calls where all they say is "you're in an outage, we're working on it".

Re:The worst

[Anonymous Coward]

A bank I deal with does the opposite: they prompt me for my account number and PIN at the start of the call, and then if I end up talking to a human, the human always thanks me for having entered my account number and PIN to identify myself so that they don't need to ask it of me again. As far as I can tell, it is impossible to get to a human without having entered my account number, but maybe the customer service wisdom is that thanking me for something, anything, will make me less annoyed.

Re:The worst

[cliffski]

errr... change supplier?
My web host is hostgator, they have 24 hour live internet chat support that is superb. My banks are smile and caterallen, both answer within 5 rings straight to a human voice who is helpfull articulate and friendly. They have good interest rates too. Every time I hear someone whine about their phone system hell, I point out that its their choice. unless you are calling the govt you have an option. Switch supplier. Customer power only works if you actually use it.

Re:The worst

[Spacejock]

My phone company does that. When the operator asks me for my number I tell them I just typed it in for them. Things start to go downhill rapidly from there.

Re:The worst

[xaotica]

sometimes the account number determines who answers your call. for example, if you're a business customer, you'll get routed to one department... a home user would go to another... and the first few digits in the account number would indicate which you were. although programs which can send the person answering the phone whatever you typed in do exist, they can be expensive... so really it comes down to what's cheapest. routing you automatically is cheap, passing the dtmf you typed in to an agent is not always so cheap.

Re:The worst

[Moby Cock]

I wish I could change. Sadly, I live in a market where there is only one option for broadband internet access. I have however, contacted my Member of Parliament about this issue twice. And an election was just called so I'll be discussing the issue with candidates.

FedEx

[Gray Elf]

Oddly enough swearing at the voice recognition software also helps. Telling the system at FedEx to "Give me a Damn person," will drop you a customer representative. And it feels good.

Re:FedEx

[Lord_Dweomer]

"Oddly enough swearing at the voice recognition software also helps. Telling the system at FedEx to "Give me a Damn person," will drop you a customer representative. And it feels good."

Interestingly enough you could also just calmly say "representative" and get put promptly through to one as well...but whatever helps you with your anger management issues I guess.

Misspelling

[Anonymous Coward]

Way to go! You misspelled one of the six words in the headline. Purgatory is a tricky word, so why did you bother to look it up to get the right spelling?

Re:Misspelling

[Anonymous Coward]

Way to go! You misspelled one of the six words in the headline. Purgatory is a tricky word, so why did you bother to look it up to get the right spelling?

Way to go! You were typing so fast to try to mock the editors, but did not take the time to read over your own post. Negation is a tricky concept, but you might want to insert a "not" between "you" and "bother" in your horribly misguided sentence.

The worst

[Moby Cock]

I have some issues with my broadband provider from time to time and have to call tech support. The automated message has me enter in my account number before having me directed to the correct operator. At that point the guy (or girl) at the other end asks me for my account number. It drives me nuts. I have found a few short cuts to get to an operator now and use them, but for a while I was entering in random numbers and it seemed to have no effect. Why implement such a system?

UK numbers?

[EvilMonkeySlayer]

Are there any lists like this for the UK?

Rant enabled:
There is nothing I hate more than being redirected to a call centre in India or somesuch to someone who can barely understand what I say and I can barely understand what they say.
This is especially more important when i'm wanting to query a company on something complex that cannot be answered by them reading out an answer from a list of questions and answers. The moment you ask them a question that's not on their list it's headbanging against wall time as you hope to be transferred to someone in the English speaking world.
I'm not against call centres, infact curiously enough I recently got redirected to one in the USA (it may have been Canada) recently and they were able to get the answers I needed. I just hate the ones where I get redirected to a non-native English speaking country where they're reading from a script essentially.

I think the truly aggravating thing about this is that often you're on a phone line that's costing you (or the company you work for) money and the company you're calling are profiting from the call, it's actually in their best interests to get you on the line waiting longer.

Re:UK numbers?

[Grey_14]

As someone who works in a callcenter (In Canada, not india), I can tell you it's NOT usually in their best interests to keep you on hold, Most places are rated on their volume of call's, Not the time of them, in fact it's considered bad to have a long call time. though yes, I have heard a lot of complaints about indian call centers, ("Oh thank god you speak american!"), Also there are a lot of people just reading scripts, and a lot of people who actually know what they are doing, it's hit or miss.

Re:UK numbers?

[Anonymous Coward]

Thats one of the reasons I got web servers with a US company that had an 800 number that worked from the UK.

I make sure to ring back every hour until any problems got fixed.

Re:UK numbers?

[Anonymous Coward]

This is also true for high tech stuff. I'm posting this anonymously for obvious reasonse.

I work at a huge industry leading unix related company that makes and sells hardware and software and makes a killing from support contracts with enterprise and government customers. We're talking millions of dollars per customer in product and tens of thousands of dollars per year in support contracts.

And what is the only important internal metric for our in-house support? Call volume. Take lots of issues. If they're via the phone, get off the phone quickly. That's it. And follow the countless internal management related processes (that have nothing to do with actually helping the customer or fixing their problem). Those are the only important things. Solving the actual problem that the customer is paying tens of thousands of dollars for is secondary (or even tertiary).

Worse, if you have a 24x7 support contract, you better be willing to only get help during the M-F 9-5. While there will technically be someone to answer your phone after hours and on the weekends (though that will eventually be routed to India and elsewhere in the near future), they won't know your stuff and won't care to help. They'll just want to stall you long enough that they can go home and it will be someone else's problem the next morning (or Monday morning). There will be one person available in the entire world to help and you will have to share them with every customer who has a problem during that time on many products (perhaps a dozen different complex products of which the person can only possibly be an expert in one or two of them). Chances are they've never even had time to touch the product you're calling in about. And even if they're the expert in it, they may not have time to help you because they're helping someone else analyze their core files and reviewing our source to hunt down a bug and attending conference calls with another customer.

And it isn't that the engineers are stupid. It's that they are understaffed, overwhelmed and overburdened and don't have the time or resources to increase their knowledge in all of the various areas they're spread so thin to cover. And nobody cares, because the important metric isn't to fix your problem. The important metric is to answer the phone and make you go away so we don't drop any phone calls (becuase if there's just one person working, they can't answer the phone if you're on it with them).

Re:UK numbers?

[Echnin]

When I was 15 or so, I helped a friend set up her family's ADSL connection. They'd chosen an ISP which I wouldn't have recommended myself, so I innocently inquired why they'd chosen it. The mother says, "Oh, I work for them, so we get a pretty good price", upon which I ask "Oh really? What do you do there?" "I'm in tech support." ... "Oh..." She must have sensed what I was thinking, because she blurted out "Uhm, you see, we haven't gotten the scripts for this yet." Kinda says something about the tech support when the people who are supposed to tell you how to do something can't even do it themselves.

Re:UK numbers?

[Builder]

The only one I know is for the Filmworks. They recently enabled their stupid 'speak to the menu' solution, and it couldn't understand Batman Begins. So I dialed back and just tried saying 'operator' at the prompt. I was immediately transfered to a real live human... and shortly after that I was begging to be put back through to the machine :(

Re:UK numbers?

[dbIII]

a lot of complaints about indian call centers, ("Oh thank god you speak american!")

While I thank God they speak english instead. Last time I talked to a tech in Georgia USA I realised that speech in "Dukes of Hazard" is toned down to make it easier to understand.

Thank you for calling tech. supt. for...Leet Radio

[zalas]

Kind of reminds me of the Leet Radio technical support parody (scroll down):
http://www.leonine.com/voice/

NPR story

[BushCheney08]

NPR's Morning Edition did a story on this guy yesterday (listen linky). They had a few on air examples of this, then also had some interns do some more tests. They said average time to get an operator was something like 56 seconds from the time they dialed. Good stuff to know...

Customer service has no economies of scale

[Omnifarious]

This problem will never be fixed. If you want customer service, do not deal with a large organization. Customer service has no economies of scale, and will thus be worse the larger the organization you're dealing with.

I make a post about it in my blog.

Re:Customer service has no economies of scale

[Anonymous Coward]

OOOhhhh. I have a blog. You should read my blog! I have interesting things to say! Plug plug plug!

STFU. Nobody cares.

Re:Customer service has no economies of scale

[Omnifarious]

Of course nobody cares about your blog, you post stuff like "OOOhhhh. I have a blog. You should read my blog! I have interesting things to say! Plug plug plug!" in it. Nobody wants to read trash like that. Try making some real posts, and I bet it gets more popular.

Telus

[Anonymous Coward]

Recent Canadian privacy punching-bag Telus has already implemented a policy along these lines. Their new "Genesis IP Phone System" orders calls by priority, giving "High Value" customers a faster response time than "Low Value" customers. People who pay more, get better service.

This works best when customers clearly identify themselves to the IVR on the way in. It changes dynamically however when a customer simply "pounds zero" or makes other attempts to avoid the recognition system, by making them the lowest possible priority, lengthening their overall wait time.

Re:Telus

[sbwoodside]

I'm an extremely high value cellular customer (with Rogers, not Telus) and I always punch 0. I can't stand the IVR.

So I don't think the queue 0-punchers last strategy would be a good idea.

--simon

Re:Telus

[Anonymous Coward]

JPMorgan Chase also does this for the platinum (or somesuch) credit card members.

In all honesly, the more annoying a caller is to a front-line customer service representative who does not have much authority, the more that person is shooting themselves in the foot. Right or wrong, when an agent on the floor can tell his/her manager that they've kept a cool and calm attitude with a customer who is flying off the handle, this means whether the agent was helpful or not has automatically taken a backseat to the issue of taking care of a rogue idiot who is going around hassling innocent, hard working, and good employees. So even the business itself doesn't care much about that caller at this point.

Many businesses keep a blacklist of bad customers and when time comes to route their call and their number is found in the list, they are either played a dead-number tone and dropped, or played a message that the department is closed, or just put in a really really long wait state, or actually sent to a non-attended queue. They are discouraged from calling without telling them so plainly.

Re:Telus

[ceoyoyo]

Telus has also been chastised by the CRTC for their awful customer service. I REALLY love how the virtual agent transfers you to marketing if it can't figure out what you want. I bet the marketing people love that too.

Re:Telus

[HermanAB]

Actually, Telus has a very good IVR system:
1. Punch zero, about twenty times.
2. Swear profusely at the poor dork answering the phone.
3. Instantly get escalated to a higher level support person.
4. ???
5. Profit^wproblem solved.

Works for me, every time...

Re:Telus

[Lord_Dweomer]

I find this is similar to how most company phone systems already work. For example, note how for some reason it takes 10 minutes to get through to a tech support person, but it is almost instantaneous when you pick the Sales and New Service option. Gee...wonder why that is...

Well, what I usually do is go through the Sales line, and ask to be transferred directly to a tech person. Often times it helps me skip the queue entirely.

Re:Telus

[Anonymous Coward]

Frequently, companies have different sets of reps to handle sales, vs tech support vs billing. Companies are always looking to treat potential customers better than current customers.

KCAL 9 has a video story of this.

[antdude]

I saw this yesterday during the afternoon hours. KCAL 9 News has a streaming video story (night time) about this. Flash is required.

It's about getting MY way

[matt me]

Use on of those business directories, and then phone the Head guy of Custom Services directly, in his office. Just as he's about to leave. Then speak polity but firmly, with authority, don't question that you are on his private line and simply demand what you want to be done. Works a treat. Be the king.

It is not that bad

[cecom]

I recently had to use SBC's automatic phone menu system and was very pleasantly surprised. The voice recognition has gotten pretty good - it had no problem with my accent. I managed to pay my bill over the phone quickly and efficiently without ever talking to a real person. I really didn't need to, and I am sure it would have been slower if I did.

So, such systems aren't universally bad. The only thing they need is the option to talk to a live person and any given point in the menu. That would make the customers feel secure and calm - sufficiently so that they don't necessarily use it always.

Re:It is not that bad

[SilicaiMan]

I recently had to use SBC's automatic phone menu system and was very pleasantly surprised.

I wasn't.

In my case, I live in an apartment, with 2 kids. When I called SBC a few days ago, my kids were screaming, and the TV was on. The stupid IVR was trying to figure out what Dora the Explorer was saying! Currently, IVRs need a very controlled environment to function correctly. Otherwise they suck. Moreover, I don't see the advantage over 'press 1 for customer support, 2 for billing, etc ..'.

Maybe if they add some AI so that it recognizes the voice of the person talking to it, and filters out background noise, then it might become more useful. But, in its current incarnation, it plainly sucks, and doesn't really add anything.

I heard that there is a secret code..

[ylikone]

specifically, type in the number sequence 4815162342

Or was that something else.

Re:I heard that there is a secret code..

[deangelo]

I think it was 8675309

Re:I heard that there is a secret code..

[chochos]

too bad nobody got the LOST numbers reference.

Re:I heard that there is a secret code..

[Opie812]

yeah.

too bad.

Highlighted in This Is True on October 30

[hendersj]

This was the Bonzer Website from TRUE on October 30. Good to see /. keeping up with the Jonses (or Cassinghams, as the case would be).

He deserves a toast

[Anonymous Coward]

Surely these people will have him murdered for doing this. Oh well, on Thanksgivings hence I will toast to your memory.

Your call is important to us.....

[Bo Vandenberg]

One of the biggest lies of this century has to be:

Your call is important to us.....

If that really were so companies wouldn't have fired 2/3rds of their staff and got a flippin' computer.

Keep track of the ones that screen your call into areas away from their profit centers. If you get no luck with their customer service dont be afraid to call their sales desk etc... You're still talking to people responsible to the company word of honour and if you bug them enough they may actually help.

If your call is really important to them they will appreciate the extra efforts you go through to bring it to their attention.

good luck

Re:Your call is important to us.....

[TheDauthi]

I'm an IVR programmer for a large retailer. At one point in the past, we did answer all of the calls. We eventually had customers asking us to put a system in so they could get the balance on their credit cards at any hours, and to close their accounts, and such. And we did. But we made sure that it was easy to reach a real person... on the first menu it asks if you want to speak to someone live. But, no, it's not always the company that went out of their way to get an IVR.

Why not call backs?

[ewerx604]

I don't understand why all customer support systems don't employ some sort of call back mechanism. You have employees sitting at their desks, waiting for calls to come in, but inevitably there are more calls in the queue than employees so the customer is the one doing all the waiting. Why not do it the opposite way? Customer calls tech support, goes through a few basic questions to direct them to the right department if neccessary, then they enter their phone number and hang up. Their phone number goes into the queue and the CSR operator, instead of answering the next incoming call, calls the next customer in the queue! Customer doesn't have to be tied to the phone listening to musak, company doesn't have tens/hundreds of callers on hold at any given time putting load on their phone lines etc., CSR doesn't have his phone ringing off the hook -- they call you when they are ready to handle the next call. It's so simple, why isn't this more common?

Re:Why not call backs?

[mopslik]

It's so simple, why isn't this more common?

Because the corporations don't want to pay the few cents to call you back. Yes, it's that simple.

Re:Why not call backs?

[avdp]

So instead they pay a few cents for you to hold on their 800 lines?

Re:Why not call backs?

[mopslik]

So instead they pay a few cents for you to hold on their 800 lines?

I'm just guessing here, but I suspect that there's some price-break on 1-800 numbers that makes it cheaper for Joe Average to hold for 5-10 minutes before his 6 minute problem-solving session, than to call him at home for those same 6 minutes.

I have no monetary details, just some brief info here.

Re:Why not call backs?

[sapgau]

Actually that is available from my VOIP phone company here in BC, Canada.

It's simply another option added to their tech support menu.

Re:Why not call backs?

[avdp]

I am pretty sure that due to shear volume, they get a price break on any call they pay for (incoming or outgoing). Not to mantion that several of the company on the list don't probably pay for any calls since they ARE the phone company.

Now the likely true reason for them not doing that is that even with an automated dialer, the agents would waste a whole lot of time listening to voice mails, busy tones, or waiting on hold themselves while Little Johnny goes and fetch dad from the back yard, etc. With the customer calling and holding, there is basically no downtime whatsoever between "helping" customers.

Re:Why not call backs?

[bprime]

Shaw Cable is one large company that uses this practice (large ISP/cable company/voip company for the non-north american). They also have 24-hour service.

Re:Why not call backs?

[Browncoat]

Because people don't want to be sitting next to their phone just as much as they hate being tied to a muzak-ridden phone call and put on hold.

I had that happen the other day. I was calling Verizon about my malfunctioning cell phone but I was using my phone to call Verizon because it's free that way (and I couldn't find the 1-800 number). The tech guy asked for my number and he called me back after I got off my cell phone. We got disconnected, unfortunately, and that was the end of that entire tech support escapade.

There are times where controlling when you talk to a machine or a person is much more convenient. The worst thing is waiting on the fridge repair guy to come fix your leaky fridge, why would you want to sit next to a phone waiting for the tech people to call back? It doesn't eliminate holds and most people aren't going to want to give the support people their cell phone numbers because holding over the phone means minutes wasted.

It's a good idea, in theory...but a lot of tech support people would rather not take disgruntled phone calls in general and if they can delay that by not calling you back as soon as they should, why not?

Re:Why not call backs?

[jason ward]

Shaw actually does this. They're a cable TV and internet provider in Canada. It's a very handy feature to have.

Re:Why not call backs?

[Anonymous Coward]

actually there are companyies who do this, specifically, my bank does this. if im on hold for more than two minutes, it gives me the option of having a rep call me back instead of leaving me on hold. i often take this option because id rather not waste my cell minutes listening to music i didnt pick.

more over, tech support as an occupation sucks, its not only a low paying job for the amount of stress and skills required, but its also ungratifing and pretty much a revolving door of inexperienced techs.

Re:Why not call backs?

[knarf]

That is the way things work here (in Sweden) when you call the doctor ('vårdcentralen' == 'care center'). The machine even tells you when you will be called back before you tell it your number. Quite a good system, both for the customer as well as for the company.

Re:Why not call backs?

[EvanED]

Why wouldn't it help?

Instead of sitting next to the phone with the speakerphone on or (even worse) with the headset up to your ear you can wander around the house. It's only a problem if you would otherwise completely leave the house. When on hold you're pretty much stuck in one room. (Unless you've got a cordless phone, but unless you've got one with a mobile speaker phone (which I've never seen on a non cell) you have to go back to the using the headset thing.) But you can usually hear the phone ring anywhere.

Besides, what's wrong with them giving you a time they anticipate calling you back? Or even giving you the option and setting up essentially a phone appointment. If it's not gonna be for a couple hours you can go out for a bit.

Be conservative in your estimates of when you can call back. Then in the common case when you could call back earlier, either call back sooner in case they're around (but if not, still call back again when you are supposed to) or start taking live calls.

Re:Why not call backs?

[mikerozh]

It is done in some companies. A good example is Canadian cable and internet provider Shaw. They work exactly as you described. They warn you that the waiting queue is long and provide you with option to leave your phone number and when your place in queue will become first they will call you right away to ensure that you don't wait longer.

But I think it is not popular because some people will give up waiting, hang up and either do it online or call back some other time. So this efectively lowers the load on the operators.

When you have more calls then you can handle in a hour, you can't call back to everyone because your queue will grow. I think that they understand this and simple can't promiss you to call back because eventually the queue will overflow.

Re:Why not call backs?

[HappyDrgn]

Why not do it the opposite way? Customer calls tech support, goes through a few basic questions to direct them to the right department if neccessary, then they enter their phone number and hang up.
 
Because an inbound 45 minute call is cheaper than a 10 minute outbound long distance call.

Re:Why not call backs?

[houghi]

You need twice as many people as most people wont be at the phone to answer. This even if you call back within the next few minutes.

Re:Why not call backs?

[blackest_k]

actually Npower in the uk has a system which gets you to enter your phone number tells you to hang up and a real person calls you back I think in about 30 minutes. suited me it was my mobile they called. I think it took about 2 minutes to get my call request in. nicest automated system i have ever used. I hate paying to wait but this was a good compromise.

Skype does give free calls to 0800 numbers and low rates to 0845 locall and other nongeographic calls. my mobile call plan stings me everytime i call one of these numbers saves using one of those public call boxes which double as a urinal it seems.

one or two companys do allow you to type to customer services on the net another valuble way of delivering customer services.

I hate paying to wait.

Re:Why not call backs?

[stueyb]

You're assumption here is that the call centre has slack time that will allow agents to call you back. Often the reason for having to wait long times on hold is that there are not enough agents, either for that day or over longer timeframes. Therefore having a call back system often just magnifies the problem as messages queue up.

In addition, call centres are fast becoming contact centres, not just dealing with customers on the phone. Many contact centres are now able to handle email, fax, chat, sms - this is also taking up the "slack" time.

Re:Why not call backs?

[xaotica]

i work for a telcom. there's no significant price difference between inbound LD to a tollfree number and outbound LD. unless you're talking about companies which don't provide a tollfree number for customer service, which i've always found wack.

Re:Why not call backs?

[tomlouie]

Mod up. I know people who have worked call centers. If the call volume is currently lower than anticipated, then agents can opt to have take voluntary time off for the rest of the shift, unpaid. There is no slack time, no one sits around with nothing to do.

One benefit of the current long hold time system is that some callers on hold will figure things out themselves, and drop out of the queue. Other less-determined callers will drop out. It's a system that rewards tenacious callers with tough problems, for better or worse.

Lastly, I've noticed more than once when calling for cust support that about 1 out of 10 times, the agent at the other end will "accidently" disconnect me. Is this an attempt to work through the queue faster? Argh.

Tom

Some times the humans suck too

[ferreth]

While I agree that the menu-maze phone system can really suck, sometimes getting a human on the other end to redirect your call can be bad too. I've ended up in multiple call-transfer hell where I get forwarded endlessly to different parts of the company because no one even had any idea who could answer my question. New operators that drop your call are fun too after you've been on hold for 20 minutes.

In a few cases, I even prefer the menu system, for straight forward queries that I just need to provide a meter reading, or get a list of transactions. Once I know the menu route, it's quicker than dealing with a human.

911 Emergency Calls?

[dattaway]

How does a person get past the "please do not hang up" recording on 911? Calling over and over doesn't work.

Well, back in the day....

[slappyjack]

Before it became fairly standard for banks to have giant online applications for working your account, Bank of America had a pretty good phone system for checking your balance and what checks have cleared and so on.

Of course, they fucked that all up by then changing it to asking you to speak your options - that never worked.

PROGRESS!!!

If my call were so important to them

[Fear the Clam]

They'd move it to the front of the queue.

If they cared....

[zotz]

If they cared, would their system go something like this?

To use our superfantastic automated system press one now. Otherwise, press two or stay one the line and someone will answer shortly.

And for those humans who get calls, listen to what is asked of you and respond to that, not what you want to respond to.

I hate it when I ask if X is in, only to be transferred to their extension which gets me to their voicemail which I then hang up on because I need to know if they are in.

Lather, rinse, repeat.

all the best,

drew
http://www.ourmedia.org/node/85937
Tings - a nanowrimo 2005 CC BY-SA novel in progress

Re:If they cared....

[Seumas]

But what do you honestly expect? How is the person you call into supposed to know if the person you want to talk to is in? They probably aren't within walking distance of each other. Hell, they probably don't even KNOW the person you're asking for. The probably don't even work in the same city or state and may be on different coast if not different continents.

Re:If they cared....

[Kadin2048]

At some helpdesks I've talked to, they solve this problem by having the transferring person do a 3-way call, get the other person on the line, and then hang up only after rep #2 is on. So at no point (after the first person picks up) are you ever not connected to a person. This way, if the person that you're being transferred to isn't in, you're not just left there.

Granted, the system that I've used which was like this was my (very large) company's internal IT helpdesk; I doubt that any company would bother to go even this far for external customers. Most large companies think of their customers as organisms somewhere between slime mold and cattle, at treat them appropriately.

Re:If they cared....

[Seumas]

Most large companies think of their customers as organisms somewhere between slime mold and cattle, at treat them appropriately.

That's also about the level they treat their customer support or technical engineers at, too.

Re:If they cared....

[zotz]

How is the person you call into supposed to know if the person you want to talk to is in?

You are from a big country? I am not. In most places, they would know, or they can check, or at least say they don't know and do I want their extension or do I want them to check or ...

And nothing is stopping them from designing a system where they would know for the most part.

In my experience, systems get implememted for the company and not for the customers. When I find them, they can count on me not liking them.

Blindly responding to a question I did not ask is only frustrating to me.

all the best,

drew

Re:If they cared....

[Seumas]

In a lot of companies, you're lucky to to be able to find the extension of the person YOU want to talk to as a colleague. Nevermind a customer even trying to find out. Not to mention, when your company is farming work out to a dozen other countries and you have to figure out a different system / code for each and every campus in each and every country.

Personally, I prefer companies that let me work with them via email. Presuming, of course, the person I'm communicating with can form a coherent sentence, which often is not the case.

Re:If they cared....

[zotz]

Yes, well, I am talking about when I am calling and asking if someone I know personally by name is in. I am talking about a country where a company doing 5 million a year in sales is considered to be a medium size company.

Besides, even in your example, is it just to be accepted that they are brain dead companies and we must just take it with a smile and how dare we suggest things could be improved?

all the best,

drew
---
http://www.ourmedia.org/node/85937

The Cost of Clueless Customers

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree that IVR systems are very frustrating, but I work for a company that makes it's living driving out the costs of clueless humans answering telephone calls from clueless customers. More interestingly, perhaps, I work in third-level support for my company...

The cost of having one clueless human talk to another is enormous. The cost of having a well educated and knowledgeable employee who can directly deal with said clueless caller's problems is even higher.

In fact, let's face it, if you are a highly knowledgeable employee, doing support work is not the most desireable job in the world. Who wants to deal with whiny clueless end-user's problems all day? You would have to pay a premium salary to keep these people from moving to more interesting jobs.

Are you willing to pay (a lot) more for convenient customer support? Conversely, are you willing to talk to someone from India (or whereever), who could be more knowledgeable and more able to deal with your problems, at a lower cost, albeit with a sometimes difficult accent and/or attitude?

Another option is charging people who insist on having their problem solved immediately, and allowing others, who are willing to state their problem and wait for someone to get back to them, a less expensive service.

As a previous poster mentioned, IVR systems at least allow calls to be organized and routed to knowledgeable individuals to facilitate cost efficiency. Computers can answer and route calls far more cheaply (if the system is designed well) than people can. That's why the phone company charges you for operator assisted calls.

Product and Customer Support is expensive, especially for complex hardware and software systems. Perhaps every piece of software and hardware could come with two different prices: A higher one that entitles the user to convenient, high quality customer service, for a limited period, and another that provides a cheaper product but with a lower quality of customer service. This might serve to set the customer's expectations better than the current one-price-fits-all approach.

Re:The Cost of Clueless Customers

[Anonymous Coward]

"In fact, let's face it, if you are a highly knowledgeable employee, doing support work is not the most desireable job in the world. Who wants to deal with whiny clueless end-user's problems all day? You would have to pay a premium salary to keep these people from moving to more interesting jobs."

Well I spoke to all kinds for over three years, from the friendly to the mean (I let my manager deal with those as soon as he got through with the last batch we sent him.). Clueful to the "I know more than you". Customer service, ordering, tech support. And no I wasn't paid as well as one should for a position who's tagline is "all our customers are important to us". They even had us call back all the customers we had to say NO to during the busy season in some attempt to get them to come back. WTF!? Finally got canned due to burnout and my "I don't give a damn anymore, CLICK!". Did I mention the morning to night "here's a THICK stack of call-backs while you were out having a life", "the damn computers out again! work must continue.* my boss was a bitch" schedule?

*Guess who had to enter all that back in when the systems came back up, and still deal with phones. Kind of like juggling a grenade, and a firecracker, while whistling dixie.

Re:The Cost of Clueless Customers

[Elminst]

Perhaps every piece of software and hardware could come with two different prices: A higher one that entitles the user to convenient, high quality customer service, for a limited period, and another that provides a cheaper product but with a lower quality of customer service.

They already do; it's called a warranty, or extended-warranty.
But just as everywhere else, no one wants to pay more for it.
Until the buying public understands that better service actually costs money, nothing will change.

Re:The Cost of Clueless Customers

[Filthysock]

Also, this model seems to work out quite nicely for open software products as well.

Re:The Cost of Clueless Customers

[paj1234]

> Are you willing to pay (a lot) more for convenient customer support?

Yes, some people are more than willing to pay. Believe me, some people simply cannot articulate over the phone what has happened. For example, "I was writing a letter and then it went off!" Translation: "I was composing the body of my email on Yahoo Web Mail, but then Windows hung up my dial-up networking connection to Freeserve No Ties and I could not complete sending my message."

Also, some people have what seems to be a pathological aversion to telephone helplines. When talking to the helpline, they seem to get a sort of constriction of the airway; as if they can hardly breathe because of the horror and tension of speaking to the nightmare-line. They cannot wait to pass the phone to me, and as soon as I've got it, they seem to flop exhausted.

Re:The Cost of Clueless Customers

[Anonymous Coward]

Who wants to deal with whiny clueless end-user's problems all day? You would have to pay a premium salary to keep these people from moving to more interesting jobs.

Or you could just find a few newly-redundant older employees and give 'em an offer they can't refuse (helldesk or unemployment), entice a few recent college grads who are broke and need benefits, throw in some scripts and support tier runbooks, and voila!

It was a learning experience, I'll say that much. The worst is when a company outsources support for a service that has regular disruptions, and the support staff are forbidden to even acknowledge that the disruptions are regular. The repeatedly affected customers are usually smart enough to recognize the pattern and see right through the charade.

Hmm another re-occuring dream

[nurb432]

Almost as bad as being in VM hell, are these re-occuring stories that pop up every few months.

Define something please...

[eosp]

What's this customer service thing I keep hearing about?

Voice enabled IVRs, among other rants...

[Hamster Lover]

It seems a lot of companies are moving to voice based rather than touch tone based IVRs and that pisses me off. Where before I could simply press the number that corresponds to the choice I now have to say such bullshit phrases as "Help with my bill" rather than simply pressing "1" or "2" or whatever the number is that day (out of frustration I sometimes say "Molest young children" or something equally ridiculous just to see what the IVR's response will be). How is this easier? If I am in a noisy environment, which pretty much precludes any cell phone based call, the voice triggered IVR fails to understand your response and you have to virtually yell into the phone for it to recognize your input. On top of that the powers that be are so enamoured with the voice technology that there is no backup touch tone option. Why not offer both? It's a lot of fancy techno hooey with no real improvement over the old touch tone system.

Secondly, why do most companies ask you to enter your account number or phone number only ask you a second time once your connected to an operator? It's probably just a ruse to pad the time while you wait.

Once I do get a person on the line more often then not I do get some real help, but companies don't make this easy. I always make a point of being courteous and polite as you do eventually speak to a real human being.

Darn!!

[geoff lane]

None of the secret phrases was "xyzzy"

Pergatory?!

[sunwolf]

Paul English evidently didn't teach you much about spelling.

Offtopic /. mystery

[Anonymous Coward]

Please pardon my asking, but how do you post a url link on slashdot and mask the actual url an alternate string?
Everyone figured it out but me. Please help solve one of the biggest mystery in this universe.
<URL:http://ugly.long.url.com> will display http://ugly.long.url.com/
How to display an alternate text link?

Score:5, Interesting

Re:Offtopic /. mystery

[hendersj]

Use standard HTML "a href" code.

Re:Offtopic /. mystery

[Anonymous Coward]

Standard html. The a tag is even listed in the list of allowed html. I feel stupider now. Thanks anyway.

My solution - GET EVEN!

[taniwha]

On my home asterisk exchange I have the solution - whay are We on hold THEY should be on hold - basically why should you wait with your ear to the phone waiting for a human for half an hour - there's something about listening on the phone for a human to answer that makes it really hard to multitask - at least if your a programmer it is ... so - put them on hold - play a message "I really want to talk to you - when a real human shows up please type pound" and go on working an hour later when a real human shows up the phone rings and you deal with them

Seems like the wrong place for this article.....

[ShyGuy91284]

I would think many slashdot readers love automated systems due to one less situation in which social interaction is needed.... I don't mind them. I just hate answering machines, where I have to say something and make sure I don't slip up and miss a needed detail, make an ass of myself, etc, with no easy way to recover without feeling like an ass....

the worst if the wait - absolutely.

[Anonymous Coward]

I am of agree with CmdrTaco - caller the tech support is be very not good, and is he right when he say it the worst if the wait. In the fact, if the wait, it is likely I just hang up in anger. Why I wait the worst like that? They think they set up me the wait? NO!

PS: thanking you Cmdr! You learn me the English real goodly all way here from India!

Do they even use the data?

[byron036]

What I hate is when the menu asks for your account number. Then when you finally get a human, they first question?

"Can I have your account number please?"

RCN, Comcast, Apple, T-mobile I've called them all this year, and not one has ever greeted me with my account information or even an expectation of what my trouble might be. My theory is, they just hope that the menu will drive you to hang up. After all a complaint they never received is not their problem, right?

Any 1 company you can thank

[nubbie]

is http://pronexus.com/. They have a toolkit that resides in the Visual Studio IDE that allows you to make GUI IVR (Interactive Voice Response).

/used to work there.

Qwest?

[cskrat]

Couldn't find Qwest on there. Although.. sometimes the automated voice recognition system seems more capable than their live employees.

sometimes it makes it worse

[soundofthemoon]

Yesterday NPR had a segment on Paul English, which included him phoning into support lines of several companies including Apple Computer. A friend of mine works at Apple in the AppleCare department, and I pointed him at the program. After listening, his reaction was, "No, they are only making their call take longer by bypassing the menu!" The human that you reach when you bypass the menu is not set up to help you. All she can do is direct you to an agent who can provide actual help, which is exactly what the IVR menu was doing before you bailed out.

I agree that most IVR systems have serious usability problems. One of my pet peeves is that after I've gone to the trouble of keying in my account number, the human agent makes me recite it, instead of just reading it off her screen. But it gets far worse: if there is a problem with your account balance, some companies won't even let you talk to a human until you've made an automated payment, even if you are calling to sort out that you've already paid and they made an error! There does need to be an escape hatch for issues the IVR isn't set up to handle. But in many cases, using the IVR and getting routed to the right agent is going to be faster than bypassing.

Not quite that easy

[DrWhizBang]

If enough people bypass these phone systems, maybe the big companies will finally get a clue and start providing real customer service again..."

Unfortunately it is not quite that simple. I work as tech support on IVR products, and I can tell you that what this is suggesting is really just an arms race. The big companies are more than anxious to get you out of the IVR and to a real person if that's what you need. They are simply trying to avoid wasting valuable human resources as switchboard operators and dumb terminals. The problem is that, as any emerging technology, the wrinkles are still getting ironed out.

I am perfectly aware that IVRs are not new technology, but the more advanced CTI along with TTS and ASR capabilities that are growing up are making it so that it should actually be easier to get the action or info that we need more quickly. As this matures although these companies do track "0-outs" and abandons as metrics of the success of their IVR systems, they are also tracking full callflow, and they are certainly willing to listen to suggestions or even all-out complaints if they can use the data to improve service, reduce wait times (think "trunk") and more effectively use their people.

Don't just 0 out - complain!

One way street.

[Mateorabi]

I managed to pay my bill over the phone quickly and efficiently without ever talking to a real person.

Of course they are going to make it easy for you to give them money. I wonder how easily the menu system is set up for cases where they overbill you and you're trying to get them to give you money back?

old news

[blackomegax]

my mom had this story before slashdot did.
/serious

It's not about foreign call centers

[Anonymous Coward]

It's about staffing them with people that will understand me in my native language, and who can speak to me with sufficient competency in my language (and without TOO strong of an accent such that I can understand them). It's ALSO about the rep. being articulate/knowledgeable in the services they provide. Nothing is more infuriating than the rep. who just follows a script. It doesn't matter if English is their mother tongue or not at that point - just let me speak to someone knowledgeable and someone who I can understand/can understand me. I've spoken to plenty of native Enlgish speakers who follow the script, and I spoke to someone in a Pacific Island call center who was extremely knowledgeable in her field.

And a "human option" should be offered at every menu depth.

Blame the cheap companies whose motives are purely profit for outsourcing their services. Maybe also blame the shortsighted shareholders who want a quick buck - the same shareholders who complain that too many companies are outsourcing.

Simpson's

[Scrameustache]

Hello, you have reached the Springfield police department. If you know the number of the crime being commited, press it now!

[Bart presses randomly]

You have chosen "regicide"! If you know the name of the king or queen being assinated, press 1!

This is how my company's IVR works..

[Anonymous Coward]

I work for a major wireless company for their customer support. All calls go thru the IVR system first, which then attempts to verify their account and then route to the appropriate specialist queues based on the general category of the problem.

It's quicker than asking for a rep, waiting on hold for a customer service rep who will perform the same process manually and shuffle you off to the appropriate specialist. Cuts down on both your hold time, the hold time of folks just needing regular customer service, and allows the company to serve you better.

Re:This is how my company's IVR works..

[Baricom]

I think you're mistaken, for two reasons. First, IVR systems are inherently nested. Nested menus require a person to drill-down to get to the appropriate queue, often having to choose "the best option" when none of the items presented describe their problem. Second, a well-trained customer service representative is able to translate a customer's problem into a queue much more easily than an IVR system. You simply can't tell a state-of-the-art IVR system "My cell phone bill has a $315 charge that I don't understand. Can you explain it to me?" and expect it to direct you the appropriate queue.

IVR systems may be good for some things, but speed for the customer is not one of them.

Re:This is how my company's IVR works..

[Anonymous Coward]

Sure.

But instead of being patient with the IVR for 3-5 minutes as it attempts to determine the nature of your problem, you go direct to the hold queue for general customer service and wait 15 minutes for them to pickup, do the same thing the IVR would have done, and route you appropriately for another 15 minute wait. Effectively, you've doubled your time spent on the phone, and are also contributing to the hold time of other customers who have also bypassed the IVR system.

Although it'd be great to have customer service that can immediately respond to each and every call, this doesn't always work when you have millions of customers.

Re:This is how my company's IVR works..

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, they are not inherently nested anymore. There are now "how may I help you applications" where a caller can speak an open-ended response. If it is reasonably in domain to the company being called, it should get recognized and handled as appropriate. Companies with apps that can do this are AOL, Verizon, MS, etc.

MOD PARENT UP

[sapgau]

Insightful!!
Mod Parent Up

It's idiotic

[Anonymous Coward]

This shortcut list is silly. I can't speak for any company but my own, which is on the list *somewhere*. I can tell you, that if you happen to reach me and you aren't customer X,Y, or Z, certain level of support, line of business, etc, you get to be transferred back into the queue again, and wait more. Had you paid attention to the menus, you'd be where you'd get the help you need, but instead, now you're being transferred. Way to go dumbass.

don't call or just email

[nuggz]

Don't call them, simply don't do business with them.
I shop at the local physical computer shop, they answer their phone, and if I walk in I get served.

Otherwise use online support and complain about the crappy phone service.

Buy a speakerphone, call at odd hours (4am is good)

You are marginalizing yourself.

[absolutlactam]

That's doubtful. Here's why: a half decent system is set up based on what the common questions have been up to the point when they installed the system. This means that the bulk of the answers they have to give out will be in the system. Those who need to be hit with a cluebat are in this category. Those of us who need a very specific thing are not as common as the bulk of the masses. In that I agree that those of us who only need a specific question answered should have a bypass code. I usually hit '0' a few times... seems to work.

Best way: Swear at voice systems

[pherthyl]

I had a hilarious experience calling an insurance company in Canada once. They had one of those voice recognition systems, and I spent at least 15 minutes searching through every menu, trying to find what I wanted, or even a choice to speak to a representative. Some menus I couldn't back out of, and I had to hang up twice to return to the main menu.

The third time I finally got too frustrated and started swearing as soon as the computer answered. The voice paused for a few seconds, then said "Ok, a representative, one moment please."

I thought it was a brilliant idea. Recognize when the customer is getting pissed off and then get him to a human ASAP. :)

Not A Fascist

[Jennifer3000]

No, you're not a fascist. (I cannot believe you persecute minorities within the totalitarian regime you control.) You're simply a reasonable, intelligent person who knows how to spell. And it seems that WE are in the minority nowadays!

How exquisitely embarrassing, though, for the person who started this thread. I weep for the future.

So who's going to pay for it?

[slim]

Companies use automated systems because it's cheaper than having enough real people to handle it.

So, you'd rather get straight to a real person. Who do you think's going to pay for that? Will they absorb it out of their profits, or pass the cost onto customers? I think I can guess.

Yes it's a PITA, but it's the price you pay for cheap goods.

(This doesn't explain why Apple does it of course ;P)

Pergatory?

[oDDmON oUT]

"The word you've entered isn't in the dictionary. Click on a spelling suggestion below or try again..."Webster.com

Regardless of the spelling inadequecies of the title, this list is interesting, though I'd found quite a while back that repetitively stabbing 0 seemed to be the panic sequence/secret-code-for-this-is-a-truly-p-o'd-cus tomer for multiple companies.

You know they are evil

[ylikone]

See the following URLs:

http://4-8-15-16-23-42.kategorie.cz/

http://isveryevil.com/
(requires dragging the mouse over the middle of the screen to see the text)

http://www.lotto.ie/prizes_results/lastdraws.asp?d raws=30
(see the lotto numbers for Nov 19th)

Seems there is some kind of conspiracy going on with these numbers.

pssshhhh

[luckynoone]

I agree with some of these comments. IVRs help connect customers to the right groups and people with the skills needed to resolve their problems. They ultimately reduce the wait time people have on phones and get you better service. I think it is very easy for people to just get frusterated by these, but they should try and realize that the systems are really there to help them.

call backs can be hell, too

[Anonymous Coward]

BellSouth does this. It calls you back, THEN puts you on hold!

Not to worry, though. A very rude American person will eventually pick up and tell you it was all your fault anyway.

remind me of the purpose of this automation?

[novakane007]

One of my big beefs with automated phone systems, is when you have to punch in all of your "client information", like a credit card number, only to have the person answering the phone ask you for all the same information.

Ditto

[TubeSteak]

I saw this on the news last night

They broke it down and said that:
1. A live Cust. service rep can cost $1 a minute
2. Indian call centers can cost $0.40 a minute
3. Automated voice systems can cost $0.15 a minute

Oddly enough... they save 666% by using an automated system instead of a live U.S. rep

Can't afford it

[Anonymous Coward]

If enough people bypass these phone systems, maybe the big companies will finally get a clue and start providing real customer service again.

Even small companies like mine are feeling the pinch from the phone. At times the phone literally rings 20 times an hour. Employing a receptionist to answer the phone would mean increasing prices on everything. Customers are cheap?

The answer?

Do what the big companies do. We implemented asterisk and it takes at least 2 or 3 minutes wait through automated messages before you can get to a live human. Our call volume dropped about 90%. We could afford to have humans answer the phone again, when it rang. Our sales neither increased nor decreased, so the net effect was positive. Most calls before the system was implemented were mostly junk calls -- customers asking us to tell them things that were definitely in the manual. In fact, we photocopied and put beside the phone manuals to all the products we sell, and would require customers read through the manual with us for their answer before we implemented the PBX.

I'm certain many of these companies could afford a human answering the phone if you were willing to pay for it. Are you? I have my doubts.

When will we get out of spelling purgatory?

[ratbag]

Pergatory?

Re:When will we get out of spelling purgatory?

[Nevenmrgan]

I can't believe this is the only post about the headline misspell. Embarrassing...

Re:When will we get out of spelling purgatory?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not. Taco (or one of the minions) is perma-killing the karma of people who point out his spelling mistake, and "-1: Redundant" flagging all the posts. Makes you want to pony right up for a subscription ... oh wait, their ad revenue means they could do the whole thing for free if they wanted. And they'll never have to fix bugs in slashcode. Man, I'm bitter. Happy Thanksgiving http://realitystudio.org/multimedia/thanksgiving_p rayer.mov

Re:When will we get out of spelling purgatory?

[DF5JT]

" I can't believe this is the only post about the headline misspell. Embarrassing..."

Welcome to Hell.

did the dell thing

[js3]

no I'm not Indian but I found this article amusing. Sure you can talk to a human anytime you want, but your goal is to talk to one who can help you. If you end up on the sales side, they'll either can't help you or stick you back in the queue where you belong. Sometimes we would get sales questions on the tech side and stick them back in the sales queue. If you really want help quickly go to the appropriate area, that's what the phone system is for, unless you wish to moan and complain and get tuned out.

what have we learned?

[Anonymous Coward]

moral of the story : deal with as FEW large corporations as possible.

Learn to spell

[GotenXiao]

News item posters: learn to spell.
Purgatory.

Repeat after me:
Pur-gah-tor-ee.

For German Hotlines - Fuer Deutsche Hotlines

[perler]

Hi, i spontaneusly created a Wiki to collect codes for German Hotlines

German users, please contribute!

PAT

Ms Manners Guide

[Anonymous Coward]

Well that lady who called me the "F"-word because she wanted something I couldn't give her (I don't make the rules) must have some serious bones sticking out of her.

Maybe it's not "the bones" but the fact that modern manners has gone into the toilet, and we all are too busy making excuses for it to set things right?

Gibberish works every time!!

[kingmanor]

My fail-safe solution is to just mumble loudly and speak gibberish to the voice menu. Sometimes they think they heard something and reply "did you mean [whatever]?" but after a few of those they'll send you to an operator pretty quick.

This can make it harder to provide good support

[Anonymous Coward]

If enough people bypass these phone systems, maybe the big companies will finally get a clue and start providing real customer service again...

I can rearrange the menu choices and change the message on an auto-attendant on our phone system in like 5 minutes. If shortcuts through our system become common knowlege, I can break the shortcut. I can also do a log analysis and check that site to do a timing attack to correlate a number with whomever's got the site and block them. Our system runs perl, so I can automate this. And I can use ANI so CallerID spoofing is mitigated.

I know that a high percentage of the /. crowd has worked support. You try to provide the best support you can given your budget. If a customer talks to rep A for 15 minutes and then has to transfer them to rep B who then has to escelate them to another person... you haven't solved that person's problem, you've wasted an hour of their time and you've paid for a manhour which has not provided the quality of support you are trying to accomplish.

So using an automated system to try to expedite matching the right support worker with customer's needs is a good thing. It's not enjoyable by any means but it allows you to hire more and better people to serve your customers.

Of course there's going to be a threshold regarding how many hoops a person should have to deal with before they get the support they need. That's part of the job of setting that system up. A person should get the rep they need to talk to as soon as possible. You should be monitoring the performance of your system to see where the bottlenecks are, where people are getting stuck and where people are giving up and fix those problems.

But you only have so many hours of your time in the budget. Every hour I spend re-jiggering the system because somebody is telling people how to bypass is an hour I otherwise could have spent making the system better for the customers.

From a rep's perspective

[danharan]

Pergatory? There's another obviously horrid mistake in the blurb, which was supposedly edited by a human. [Did the editing get outsourced or something? No can't be india... I guess none of it is actually done.]

And that is one reason I am starting to dislike "customer service". You get lots of utterly ignorant people, and the ones that can't read or write are often the ones that can't understand the spoken word. "I can't help you right now, I will have to ask my supervisor to look at your situation and call you back in the morning" Conversation should be OVER, save a few niceties. Quit arguing with me, it's just killing my stats. I can't help you, bitch/fuckwit.

So I just imagine the pain of those in their organizational silos, getting people that insisted on talking to the wrong person. It's their job performance that suffers- all the stats for incoming and outgoing calls are recorded. The more out calls, and the longer the calls, the more likely you are to get canned. Plus, I get to have a person on hold while I'm on hold with another department. WTF? Misery insists on having company to listen to elevator music.

If you're pissed off about a phone menu, don't make the reps suffer. Tell them politely, or better yet, write a letter about it. Take your business elsewhere if you hear of better service.

But for the love of #random deity# just press the buttons and be nice to the rep.

Re:From a rep's perspective

[chadjg]

I can't help you right now, I will have to ask my supervisor to look at your situation and call you back in the morning" Conversation should be OVER, save a few niceties. Quit arguing with me, it's just killing my stats. I can't help you, bitch/fuckwit.

Well, my problems don't go away so neither will I. Your, in the collective sense, stats are not my problem, and working at your supervisor's convenience isn't either. Basic humanity shoudln't be ignored, but saving sombebody else's stasts just isn't on my list.

Re:From a rep's perspective

[danharan]

"Besides sending this to my supervisor, is there anything else I can do for you?"

"I want this problem dealt with NOW."

Let me be clear: I hear that ALL the time. I deal with everything from account inquiries / trouble shooting to life-critical apps. For the record, I do level I work but unsupervised night-shift (some L2 responsibilties) and deal with fuels. Yeah, explosive stuff.

If you have a dangerous situation, I have full authority to do whatever it takes to get you help. If you're arguing, it's because you either want to stop help from getting there ASAP or that you really think I have the authority to do the accounting department's work (refund / rebilling), or can authorize a change in price (supervisor).

Seriously, if a level I rep can't help you, you're just being obnoxious by staying on the line. There's efficient ways to get much better deals out of most corporations, but alienating L1 reps is not one of them. And we get in trouble if we hang up first. So quit doing it.

Re:From a rep's perspective

[Anonymous Coward]

Being a tech support agent as well... I can safely say that if you're put on hold for 10 minutes, it's because you're being belligerant.

If we say "there's nothing more I can do to help you", then staying on the line and saying "Well, I'm not leaving until it's fixed" just pisses everyone off, doesn't solve your problem ANY more than it was earlier, and wastes everyone's time.

It's people like you acting like that that forces companies to have convoluted voice menus.

Re:From a rep's perspective

[bill_mcgonigle]

If you're arguing, it's because you either want to stop help from getting there ASAP or that you really think I have the authority to do the accounting department's work (refund / rebilling), or can authorize a change in price (supervisor).

Or just maybe it's because I called your company for help, probably expecting help based on some pre-arranged agreement, and you're telling me the company I contracted with isn't able to offer the help I'm calling for and expecting. Rememeber, I called the company, not you. I'm not upset with your either - I'm upset with the company and you're its representative. How the company is staffed and organized internally is irrelevant to me - either I get my problem solved or I go away unhappy.

Seriously, if a level I rep can't help you, you're just being obnoxious by staying on the line.

Or maybe after 10 calls a night from people who really feel they need Service X when they call you'll get annoyed and complain to your boss and it'll get up the chain of command and actually get implemented. Better customer service and all that.

Option C

[missing000]

Infinite loop.

Please Mod Parent Insightful

[TFGeditor]

The decline of manners is responsible for a great deal of societal degradation. Simple manners reduces conflicts and friction. Or, as someone wrote a couple of thousand years ago, "A soft word turns away wrath."

Re:Please Mod Parent Insightful

[ceoyoyo]

Unfortunately customer service seems to be set up to have the worst manners possible. You call, they give you the runaround. Finally, when you get to talk to somebody there are two possibilities. Either you get a polite customer service rep who wants to help you (it does happen, very rarely though!), or you get one who wants to give you the minimum possible. If you get the second kind, you'll just go around in circles until you eventually let a little frustration slip through. THEN you get service (or at least a real explanation or maybe a credit on your next bill).

Re:Please Mod Parent Insightful

[TFGeditor]

You are quite correct. I had a most interesting conversation with a "customer service" rep in India whrn my ISP implemented an anti-spam program that sucked canal water. All I wanted to do was turn the damned thing off. The rep was sticking to his script. I asked him what his real name was (based on the strong Hindi accent, it certainly wasn't "Jeremy"), and he finally lightened up when I asked about the weather in his Pradesh of India. He then told me how to deactivate the damnable "service."

Re:Please Mod Parent Insightful

[ceoyoyo]

Definitely. I'm always sure to try polite first. It's not the reps fault you were on hold for so long. A while ago I had a nice conversation with a Telus DSL rep who broke script and told me why the Internet was really down instead of the story she was supposed to tell me. Letting them know you're getting irritated is the last resort, but sometimes it's required.

I once had an interesting conversation with a telemarketer. He called and, as usual, I asked him to hold on for a minute. My roommate and I resumed practicing the oboe-cello duet we were playing. Eventually he hung up (sometimes they'll wait around a LONG time -- time they aren't annoying other people). This guy called back though! Apparently he played an instrument too, and wanted to compliment us on the serenade. ;)

Think I'm cruel to telemarketers? My sister keeps one of those talking stuffed animals beside the phone for when they call. :)

Re:Please Mod Parent Insightful

[TFGeditor]

"My sister keeps one of those talking stuffed animals beside the phone for when they call."

Laughing my ass off!

Re:Please Mod Parent Insightful

[ceoyoyo]

:) My sister is like that. If she takes a phone message you have to wait ten minutes until you stop giggling and catch your breath so you can call the guy back.

Re:Please Mod Parent Insightful

[petermgreen]

it does but customers find it hard keep thier cool when they are already pissed off because of the problem THEN they have to get through a fucking slow automated menu system THEN they get through to a support person who doesn't really have a clue what they are talking about and is reading a script.

and putting a caller through to people with a strong accent that makes them hard to understand isn't exactly going to help the callers temper either.

It doesn't work

[rsilvergun]

any tech support junkie these days just gets a speaker phone, the worst ones have their own headsets. They'll just comfortably go on working while they wait, mean while tying up a phone line you're probably paying for.

Swearing: Quickest way to get a human

[teneighty]

What I hate the most are those voice menu systems that ask you to say what topic you're interested in, and then based on their voice recognition software. Our local phone company started using one of these for their customer service line, and it was so incredibly irritating to use that I ended up swearing viciously at it. The result? It immediately transferred me to a human operator.

Moral of the story: when faced with a voice prompt system - just swear at it to get what you want. Go right ahead and let 'em know what you think. Don't hold anything back.

I guess I would be adjusting my priorities then...

[brunes69]

... and cancelling the service.

Seriously, if companies think I have nothing better to do than sit on the phone all day, they are nuts. I will gladly pay a higher price at a competitor than waste hour sof my valuble time on the phone for a simple issue.

Example, I was getting a really good long distance rate at Primus canada, like 4 cents a minute or something. One day I wanted to change th credit card it was being billed to - I was on hold for ***2 hours*** waiting for someone. Luckily I had a speaker phone at work so it didn't bother me much. but guess what? That call to change credit card numbers quickly became a call to cancel my service altogether.

Been doing this for a while now.

[bleckywelcky]

I'm surprised more people didn't know about this. I've been doing this for a while now because I'm sick of spending 10 minutes wading through all the options. Although, depending on why I am calling, I might go through the options because I know it's a standard issue that needs to be resolved by a particular department.

What I find funny are the companies that try to hide the shortcuts. When I call my credit card company, this first 2 times you hit 0 the system says "sorry, I did not understand your input". Then when you finally hit 0 for a 3rd time it says "please hold for the next operator". And I don't think it's simply because you are mashing buttons, because it doesn't work for other numbers like pressing 8 three times.

poster's train of thought

[LeninZhiv]

"Hmm, what shall we call a place where souls are purged, a place of
purgation, if you will? Oh, I've got it! How about Pergatory!"

--Gah!

Why Change?

[pr1000]

Why would companies abandon phone trees? They save the companies so much money by reducing the number of people they have to hire to answer phones (of course, this is also why rural or overseas call centers are popular). If customers get fed up and just go online (which is the first thing companies like SBC urge you to do when you connect) or give up seeking support altogether, they save even more money. It's only if significant numbers of people get fed up and stop buying their products that they would have to change. Now, government agencies (at least the ones that let us call them) never have enough money, so they'd probably always have phone trees.

Oh, and the US seems to be one of the few countries in the world where 24/7 phone lines (or 6am-10pm, or something similar) seem to be what customers expect (vs 9-5 Monday-Friday). I'm sure US companies would love to reduce the number of hours. If we consumers only expected service during those hours, then maybe they could use the savings to hire more employees to answer the phones. Or, they may give us just as bad service, less often.

Don't press anything

[artg]

In the UK, at least, the voicemail systems don't assume you have a tonedial phone (there are still plenty of pulse dialers around). So they always start by asking you to press # or something. If you don't press anything, most of them will drop you straight through to a voice operator.

Who pays for it?

[Temporal]

Human customer service is much more expensive than automated systems. Unless they make you pay per call (which probably isn't what you're going for), these costs will be returned to the consumer through higher product prices. Is this really what you want?

Just asking.

An old rotary dial phone

[alfredo]

is a good solution. I haven't used on for a while for voice mail hell, but it seems to expedite connection.

Call Queue vs Answering Machine..

[TheHawke]

As a lead tech support rep for a ISP, we are at the crossroads as if we either go Asterisk to deploy a call wait queue, or stick with a old-fashoned answering machine system.

"50 cents one way," we've caught hell that they have to talk to a machine. What one solution that i'm working on is the call queue feature that Asterisk deploys.

"Half a buck the other" If our techs are swamped with calls, they immediately enter the call queue, listening to music and helpful hints.
All of our agents are currently busy, please hold and we'll get to you as soon as humanly as possible..

What's a small time ISP to do when they hit the phones extra hard?

Re:Call Queue vs Answering Machine..

[Anonymous Coward]

Outsource your call center to India.

One day later ... ;(

[papaia]

"Beating the automated voice system.....Wednesday November 23, @07:49AM......rejected"
I tried to post the above, a day earlier, but it was rejected ... no wonder these guys are kicking ./ a**, and with their podcasts capability, are taking this area of news over (as I have also commented on, in an earlier article). Oh, well ...

And the Cost?

[Josuah]

And I assume then you are willing to pay the additional cost associated with employing real people instead of an automated system? Those costs can either be passed down to you in the original product or service price, or you can be charged for the phone call. Or, somehow you can convince the shareholders to take a lower return on their investment so you can get better service when you call. There's a reason things have gone this direction, and it does have a lot to do with what the market asked for.

Re:And the Cost?

[Anonymous Coward]

Or the greedy robber barons can suck it up and pay, or go out of business. How about them apples?

Do you really always WANT to talk to a person?

[apflwr]

I understand the bile, especially when you have a problem that needs to be dealt with immediately-- like a problem with broadband service or another utility, or a mission-critical product failure. The last thing you want to do is plod through menus just to be put on hold .

But-- there are times when I've been very happy not to have to deal with a human, and I've had some generally positive experiences (or as positive as they could be considering the circumstances.) Paying a parking ticket by phone in L.A. is actually pretty easy, for example. And when I had to set up automated payments with the IRS a few years back the last thing I wanted to do was talk to an IRS agent... I was downright happy to do it through the automated menus. And I'm always (and I mean ALWAYS) happy when I can cancel a service (like an ISP, long distance plan or cell phone) through a menu, rather than having to hear a customer service agent give me a sales pitch why I should stay.

Bottom line, if you know what you need to do (pay a bill, cancel a service, etc.) it can be much more convenient to just navigate a few menus. Especially if you're a social misfit like me.

Post #31337

[SilverspurG]

That list, as far as I can tell, is the most elite piece of art I've seen in over 15 years.

That's the old way.

I just call the sales number

[bxbaser]

Or use the sales menu , never fails can usually get thru to someone in sales.
For some resoan even though they cant get you a person on the phone for hours they are never to swamped to sell more.

Smart Menus

[Doc Ruby]

IVR menus seems like a perfect smartphone app. If the IVR server sent down a text message with its labels and keys, the smartphone could let us quickly pick the recorded service we're seeking, or even a callback from a live human.

Re:Smart Menus

[dragonman97]

Amen! I've been wanting that for quite some time now. I think this could also be done online - fill in your contact/contract information, and get placed in the queue for a callback. It could even call you sporadically to confirm you're there if they want that assurance. Heck, maybe it could tell you to call in n minutes, and enter code 1234. I can dream, can't I?

Re:Smart Menus

[Doc Ruby]

The nice thing about dreaming out loud in a crowded geek theater is that someone might just make it work :).

Re:Eats, Shoots and Leaves.

[TFGeditor]

Now, THAT is funny!

Amazingly, yes

[arodland]

Even more amazing, it was Verizon's. I hate Verizon, hate their service, but their automated system works really well, and does an eerily good job of acting human.

My pet peeve: IVRs that try to pretend to be human

[gblues]

Am I crazy for actually LIKING old-style phone menus ("for X, press 1..")? I absolutely hate dealing with menus that want me to talk. It's like playing Zork by voice! I'm sorry, but I don't want to say a word unless a human being is listening.

The absolute worst offenders are Qwest and UPS. Thankfully I dropped the former a couple months ago in favor of Vonage.

Nathan

Oblig. Incredibles Quote

[whois_drek]

(Horrified tone of voice) "They're penetrating the bureaucracy!"

List of complaints

[Propaganda13]

Voice menus - ever try going through a voice menu and someone else is talking to loud or trying to ask you a question? All of a sudden you're 5 layers deep and don't know where you are

Giving info to the menu system - most of the time you just end up repeating the information

Lack of queue information - Sony had a system that would tell your place in line and estimated wait time. There have been many times where your call gets lost in the system. Waiting, punching 0, etc does nothing, but a hang up and recall gets you answered right away.

Machines that hang up on you right away with no choice. Machines that hang up on you after 20 minutes of hold music with no choice.

Your call is important messages especially when they sound like someone picked up the line.

There's a ton more, but it's the holidays. So I'll leave you with this: remember when they had rotary phone option where you could just wait to talk someone if you did not have a touch tone phone. Used it all the time with my touch tone phone.

Because they want you to give up

[cyberformer]

The automated systems are intended to dissuade people from calling. People who are left on hold for an hour will eventually give up, and people who know they're going to be put on hold endlessly won't bother to call at all.

The end result is a lot of disattisfied customers, but many companies don't care about that. Customers who need lots of technical support tend not to be very profitable, so the provider doesn't really mind if they go elsewhere. And in the case of of the DSL and cable monopolies, there's nowhere else to go anyway.

And Verizon.

[Somatic]

I found this out on accident when, after calling Verizon for the 5th time to find out why my DSL service was still not activated 3 weeks after I ordered it, I finally got frustrated with the computer opeator and yelled, "I want to talk to a fucking human being." 3 seconds later, I'm talking to a real human. Amazing.

Customer Service does not exist

[Anonymous Coward]

A corporation is an artificial entity that pretends to be a person in the eyes of the government for the purposes of making money. Although there are people working for the corporation, and leading it, it is not a person, nor is it necessarily even a group of people in most cases (because that would be a partnership.) Corporations do not have feelings, do not create products and services (the people working for them do), and therefore, do not exist.

The purpose of customer service is to supplement the illusion that a corporation consists of people. The way this service is provided is to sort the people into queues depending upon their level of recognition of the fact that corporations do not exist; the agents providing and maintaining this bubble of warm, fuzzy feelings that the customer expects to see.

A majority of the problems call center agents are faced with can be solved by literacy; eg, the customer just needed to read something.

The moral:RTFM

I hear they're hiring this girl named Eliza...

[evilninjax]

... to answer the phones.

"Why don't you tell me about your problem?"

"How do you feel about that problem?"

NPR coverage

[$exyNerdie]

You can listen to the audio of NPR's coverage here:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?story Id=5024153

mashing keys...

[OBeardedOne]

to get out of the automated system and speak to a customer rep causes bigger problems in many cases. i.e.

robot: For account enquiries press...

User: Mash mash mash on keypad.

Robot: Ok, we'll just put you through to a customer support representative. .... 15 minute wait

Customer rep: How can I help you?

User: Yeah hi, I need some technical support.

Customer rep: Oh ok, I'll just put you through to tech support, please hold.

Another 20 minute wait and a broken telephone.

Telephone Companies are the Worse

[lloy0076]

Voice: "Please enter your phone number"
Me: Enters Phone Number ...wait at least 15 if not 45 minutes
Operator: "Can you tell me your phone number, please?"

I've taken to stating bluntly that "I've already entered my phone number, isn't it in front of you?". God, I hate that - why waste my time entering my damned phone number and then ask me it AGAIN?

Telstra (http://www.telstra.com/) has this stupid voice recognition system which incidentally, doesn't really work:

Telstra: "Please say your phone number."
Me: "I want to talk to a Fsdjfdsfjng person."
[repeat about 5 times] ...and voila, you get put on a different queue. /me stupid Telcos

DSL

get what you pay for

[pintomp3]

because of the internet, it has become very easy to compare prices down to the dollar. most people buy the cheapest item from the cheapest source. this makes companies try to shave as much as possible from the price. one of the first things to go is support because it costs so much. a 90 day base warranty used to be standard on only the cheapest computers, now everyone is doing it. i'm the type of person who pretty much only calls support when i already know what the problem is and just need a part. there are a lot of people who call first (they either don't want to or don't know how to do some basic troubleshooting). a well designed automated system can remedy a lot of their problems, if they give it a chance. companies will try to cut costs whereever they can. there are two parties forcing them to do so. customers who buy strictly on price instead of value, and of course the shareholders who want to see higher profits.

Skill Based Routing

[stueyb]

"As a previous poster mentioned, IVR systems at least allow calls to be organized and routed to knowledgeable individuals to facilitate cost efficiency.

It's actually the ACD that does this, commonly know as 'Skill Based Routing'. Systems are now even able to differentiate different service levels depending on the type and channel of the contact and select the most appropriate agent.

Uh, that's "Purgatory"

[Anonymous Coward]

good grief, you would think the editors had at least a 5th grade education.

I hear up,down, left, right, B, A, start works too

[Max Nugget]

"When asked for account number, keep hitting ""#"". After 5 or 6 times, a human appears!"

Make sure you save your game at this point as if you get disconnected you'll have to start all the way back at Menu 1.

What is this, a videogame FAQ? lol.

dont get it

[Anonymous Coward]

wtf is a "pergatory"? The story title is meaningless

spellchecker for the editor please!

[Anonymous Coward]

Pergatory? You mean Purgatory? Sheesh! Not that it matters, but as an editor of anything you shouldn't that go, in the headline no less!

Reminds me of a joke.

[thelonestranger]

Hello! Thank you for calling.

If you are obsessive-compulsive press 1 repeatedly
If you are co-dependant, please ask someone else to press 2 for you
If you have multiple personalities, please press 3, 4, 5 & 6
If you are paranoid, we know who you are and what you want, please stay on the line
so we can trace your call and persecute you.
If you are delusional, press 7 and your call will be transferred to the mothership.
If you are schizophrenic, listen carefully and a small voice will tell you which number to press.
If you are a manic depressive, press whichever number you like, no-one will answer you.
If you are dyslexic, press 69696969696969696969696.
If you have amnesia, press 8, followed by your date of birth, your social security number, home phone number, the square root of 1,555,666,777,888 and your tax code followed by the atomic number for Uranium.
If you have post traumatic stress disorder, slowly and carefully press 000.
If you have BI-polar disorder, please leave a message after the beep, or before the beep, for god's sake wait for the beep.
If you are suffering from short-term memory loss, please press 9.
If you are suffering from short-term memory loss, please press 9.
If you are suffering from short-term memory loss, please press 9.
If you are suffering from short-term memory loss, please press 9.
If you are suffering from short-term memory loss, please press 9.
If you have low self esteem, go away, no one can be bothered to talk to you anyway.

it doesn't save time.

[xaotica]

i work for a telcom, and years of that were spent doing tech support. currently i'm in a position where people call me directly. the system you describe would be terrible for all parties involved. phone tag is an unbelievable waste of time. at least 50% of the time when i call someone they do not answer the phone, even if they left the message less than a minute ago. and when they try to call me back - surprise surprise, i've taken another call. so they're back in my voicemail... ad infinitum. it's also not at all uncommon for people to leave the wrong number, a number which is not functional (a VOIP line and their internet connection is down, a line that rings through but goes to voicemail and their voicemail is full, a number which is busy and they have no call waiting, etc. etc.) sometimes people just don't answer any call which doesn't have caller ID... but if you're calling out of a pbx phone system, you frequently won't have any. the result? you can't reach them, and they attribute that to not caring about them as a customer.

Because they're busy talking on the phone anyway

[nikanj]

In many places the "telephone people" do both sales and first line "You need to have electricity in order for your television to operate. Just plug it in you moron" support. So when they're not talking a support call, they're making sales calls. In other words, there would be no gain from the callbacks, just increased time used in employee-waiting-for customer mode instead of the much more profitable customer-waiting-for-emplyee mode. The companies much prefer customers having to wait in line for a few minutes to employees *audible gasp* having little breaks between calls every now and then.

Some systems simply ignore user input...

[TheCatWhisperer]

The Royal Bank of Canada's (royalbank.com) Visa Support line simply ignores user input until it is ready for it. If you've called in once, you know that you press 1 for English, well, if you try to do that the second it answers or anytime before it's opening speech is done, it ignores you. Also, at the main menu, and the very end of it's speech it tells you to press 0 for assistance, but you can only press zero AFTER the speech is done. You can press any of the other menu options at any time before. This is VERY frustrating when you know your question isn't answered by one of the given items, or that you need to speak to a customer service rep anyway. With customer support like that it is a wonder they HAVE customers ;) ( I actually cancelled my visa with them over this )

Site was down, now back.

[billo]

Sorry folks, the site was getting slashdotted bigtime this morning.

We've moved it to a more powerful host (i.e. not one little tiny
linux machine).

Should be back now; if you don't have the DNS propagated yet (new IP is 64.193.235.91), you should be able to access the site via this alternate name:

http://pme.slowbase.com/ivr/

Sincerely,

billo
(Paul English's web lackey)

homogeneous, genius.

[wild_berry]

Ah, the power of "Press 1 for globalization; 2 for systematic destruction of indigenous cultures for the sake of developed nations' wasteful lifestyles; 3 to listen to the improvements in dividend the shareholders made for this outsourcing; 4 for the tax dodges we did to outsource and insource again (depending on you locale); 5 for our prospective ways to write off the savings made with our call centres and so not reimburse the shareholders at all; 6 to be ignored; 7 for immediate disconnection; 8 to repeat this menu in your local dialect; 9 for the great products and services of our partner companies who are giving us more money to support this venture. Wait on the line for connection to a representative of our non-trained college-educated temp staff"

circuit city credit card

[Anonymous Coward]

wait don't press any buttons, will get a live person after 3 repetitions of the message

just got it from the horse's mouth

spellcheck

[martianradio]

How about spelling Purgatory correctly? (note the second letter is U, not E)

disgruntled Indian CSRs

[Geoff-with-a-G]

its ok. they dont want to take your calls either.

Welcome to customer service. Some customers are jerks, and you have to put up with them. That's why the customer is paying, and you're being paid. If Indian CSRs don't want to take the calls, they should go find other jobs, and the jerk American customers will be talking to expensive American workers again.

IVR Guide

[Cags]

Please could someone do the same for English companies!