“It’s annoying when you’re trying to reach somebody and you have to press A, press B, press 1,2,3 50 times you know and then you’re cut off.”
-Mike Albert, Satisfaction Services
Mike Albert makes his living helping companies improve customer service. So he should know why so many companies do so much to annoy so many.
“It costs a lot of money to get people to answer your phone, to be nice… hire the right people.”
-Mike Albert, Satisfaction Services
But what technology creates, it can also foil. Because now, if you know the code, you can go around the maze and get to an actual human.
One place to find the code? This free website, called get2human.com. It lists a phone menu workaround for nearly every major company. It’s maintained by Walt Tetschner, a long-time market researcher in the call automation industry.
And it actually works. When Stacy called his credit card company, it took nearly 3 minutes of prompt following to get to a human. Using the code on get2human? 30 seconds.
Some smart phones like the iPhone even let you buy an app that does it all automatically. You simply pick the company from a list and it automatically either finds a human or tells you exactly which buttons to press to get one.
Bottom line? Nothing wrong with companies trying to force you to talk to a machine. But hey, why should you have a hang-up on using a work-around to restore that human touch.
Another site to try? gethuman.com (one number different from get2human.com). And if you’re looking for a good iPhone app that’ll help you skip phone trees, try GetHuman [iTunes] or Connect [iTunes].
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