Stop talking to the machine ! How to bypass automated voice system

[lcschung]

These systems make you want to throw the phone out the window. However,most customer support numbers have ways to bypass that nonsense. With a little help, you can go straight to a human !

http://ihatebadservice.blogspot.com/2009/01/stop-talking-to-machine-get-me-human.html

[armandino101]

Good link. 0 usually does the trick. Call centres drive me nuts :twisted:

[abu_sme]

Honestly, sometime I prefer dealing with the machine for simply tasks. I had a job where I had to call a 1-800 number maybe 10 times a day. When I started they used touch tones to navigate. Worked brilliantly because I had a decision tree to decide where to go.


THEN they replaced it with a voice prompt. My calls went from being 45 seconds in length to over 5 minutes. I ended up zeroing every call out of frustration.

[milhouse6]

I've long suspected these routing systems are partially designed to 'weed out' callers that aren't serious and/or desperate to talk to someone. For all the lip service denying it, customer service is still considered an expense.

Anyone here with inside information, i.e. call centre management? Am I right in suspecting businesses have minimum hold times to ensure they're not wasting dollars on customers that call in on a whim?

[fenrus]

i remember Rogers had one of these things, I think her name was Melanie?

After being frustrated (0 and operator didn't work), and going through tonnes of menus, Melanie said, "Did you want to speak to an operator?", I like literally shout into the phone "YES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

And she goes, "Sorry! I did not understand your response. Good bye!"

I would've ripped the head off of the lead programmer if he was in front of me.

[sxz]

0 Works in most cases.

[gordholio]

I long for the days when you talk to a real person.

[AzN_RiverdaleCI]

cool link thanks.

[ullyeus]

I used to design these systems for a living...zero works sometimes but your best option is to just sit on the phone for 30 seconds and not say anything.

By law most companies need to put you through to a person then as the system is designed that to think you are calling from a rotary phone vs push button.

[Eyies]

I usually spam 0. Either it'll access the right menu option of 'Operator' or it'll trigger the "I'm sorry.. I don't understand your input. Now transferring you to a customer service representative"

[ullyeus]

I've long suspected these routing systems are partially designed to 'weed out' callers that aren't serious and/or desperate to talk to someone. For all the lip service denying it, customer service is still considered an expense.

Anyone here with inside information, i.e. call centre management? Am I right in suspecting businesses have minimum hold times to ensure they're not wasting dollars on customers that call in on a whim?

I used to manage call centres and create IVR systems like this and would have to say it's not designed to "weed out" callers who aren't serious.

It's funny but I think most call centres do it for a few reasons;

a) They just think "they should" as that's what other call centres do ...or what they always have done...it's how to look professional?

b) For their own internal tracking...companies want to know how many people are calling for billing vs customer service vs complains and an IVR is an easy way to do this. There are better ways to do this....but most companies just find it easier to make people go through a menu.

c) It does work on a fraction of the people that find their answer through the use of an automated system, if even 5% of the people are content and happy after dealing with the system it can be worth it

[Snicla]

Not to be a dick, but shouldn't this thread be locked?

[ullyeus]

Not to be a dick, but shouldn't this thread be locked?

I can't even fathom a reason it should be...can you care to enlighten me?

[Snicla]

I can't even fathom a reason it should be...can you care to enlighten me?

Promoting his own site. Same reason another thread got locked yesterday.

[ullyeus]

Promoting his own site. Same reason another thread got locked yesterday.

I didn't even click the link....it is lame...especially since all he is doing in his blog is copying information from gethuman.com

I think an edit would be fine

[fenrus]

this is why most people paste their articles directly into the RFD text, so we don't have to click on links. too bad for the ones that don't.

[Hairball]

Yeah I think this guy is spamming.

But gethuman.com looks like it's for US companies, this guy's blog has Canadian ones. So it might be useful.

EDIT: I withdraw my above comment after the Canadian ones are indeed on that site, and they're the same.