wnbubbleboy
Veteran
Dial-a-human: How to outsmart automated phone systems
BY JOLAYNE HOUTZ AND EMILY HEFFTER
The Seattle Times
Press 1 if you've ever been trapped in phone-system hell when calling the customer-service line of a large company.
Press 2 if you've ever cursed, yelled or hung up in despair before reaching a human being.
Press 3 for shortcuts to go straight to a real person.
To help you escape from automated phone purgatory, we've compiled a consumer's guide for thwarting the phone systems of more than 20 national companies.
We spent more than 2 1/2 hours on hold while experimenting with various tricks to bypass the phone menus, voice prompts and automated routing systems to reach a human. A few made it easy to get an operator. Others required a virtual tap dance of carefully timed number-pushing, or they trapped callers in an endless loop of options.
The worst we encountered: United Airlines, at 16 1/2 minutes from start of call to human voice, even with the shortcuts. Starbucks card services came in second at 16 minutes.
The fastest response time? Nordstrom answered the phone so fast it hadn't even started ringing on our end. At Southwest Airlines, a person picked up in 20 seconds.
Here's the rest of the story:
http://www.fortwayne.com/mld/newssentinel/...ng/13619847.htm
BY JOLAYNE HOUTZ AND EMILY HEFFTER
The Seattle Times
Press 1 if you've ever been trapped in phone-system hell when calling the customer-service line of a large company.
Press 2 if you've ever cursed, yelled or hung up in despair before reaching a human being.
Press 3 for shortcuts to go straight to a real person.
To help you escape from automated phone purgatory, we've compiled a consumer's guide for thwarting the phone systems of more than 20 national companies.
We spent more than 2 1/2 hours on hold while experimenting with various tricks to bypass the phone menus, voice prompts and automated routing systems to reach a human. A few made it easy to get an operator. Others required a virtual tap dance of carefully timed number-pushing, or they trapped callers in an endless loop of options.
The worst we encountered: United Airlines, at 16 1/2 minutes from start of call to human voice, even with the shortcuts. Starbucks card services came in second at 16 minutes.
The fastest response time? Nordstrom answered the phone so fast it hadn't even started ringing on our end. At Southwest Airlines, a person picked up in 20 seconds.
Here's the rest of the story:
http://www.fortwayne.com/mld/newssentinel/...ng/13619847.htm
excellent productive group...
