Poorly designed automated calling systemsFollow

I can't tell if TXU Energy is really smart or really dumb. It all depends on whether they intentional designed a calling system so bad that I was annoyed into signing up for auto-pay.

First of all this automated system is a talker. One would think a navigition menu would stop at the highest tier menu, but you get asked lower tier questions first like "are you calling about a power outage?" No, I, like most people, want to pay my bill. Why don't you ask me that first? There is little to no number navigation, you MUST use voice commands. Not only does this slow down the process significantly, but the system might as well be an dirt cheap Indian call center with how well it can understand English. Second, the system won't accept rude interruptions. You already know the answer to the next question it's going to ask? Sit down, take a seat, the system is talking, and you'll have your turn eventually. Give it too much lip and it will give you the finger, directing you to a real human being which will incur a $3 service charge.

What could be a 20 second process turns into a 4 minute ordeal.

I just want to give them my money. Why don't they want to take my money?

Edited, May 7th 2009 6:35am by Allegory

The tech support line at work has an automated voice only system thing too that's really irritating. It recognizes voice commands at any time, so you can skip over a lot of the automation if you know what to say. It's funny to see people at work call the line, then immediately say "No, No, Yes, No, Operator, Operator."

No.

They might, but the last time I tried to pay my bill online was with Time Warner, and their ridiculous service where they would not let me look up the amounts I had been billed.

People have been trying very hard not to take my money.

I just took the time to look if my electricity bill had paid itself (it has), but I'm still wondering why I didn't have to pay it for the last three months. I bet the other electricity company screwed up and the Caritas had to pay. I hope. I mean, I can pay them €50 if need be but I don't want to.

If you pay close enough attention to most of those call systems, there are sometimes small back doors that the programmers miss, which allow you go make a phone call form their internal system.

It's nice calling your local power company, then making some long distance calls on their dime ... lol

you want dumb answering services, spend some time with the military. Every single thing they do is incredibly complicated and can probably be done just as efficiently if a living organism did it, and much simpler as well.

If you have an iPhone, try the Dial Zero app from the App Store. It's free, and it allows you to bypass the automated answering services of 600 different companies to connect directly with a real customer service representative.

On another topic, has anyone else been getting those automated spam calls on their cell phone saying "your vehicle's factory service warranty is about to expire"? I thought I was on the Do Not Call list, but lately I've been getting at least 2 of these spam calls a day. They're always from a different number, too, so it's useless to try to block them.