Man Vs MachineFollow

So, I consider myself to be "in with the technical ages". I do online banking. I use auto-pay to pay for all of my bills. I don't own a "check book". I have been a smart phone user since JAN 2007 and I have laptops and a tablet. However, there are times when I prefer to talk to a person as opposed to an automated machine.

Those times are usually when I can't find my answer online or want to ask a series of questions other than my "current balance". Nowadays, the "press 0 for an operator" voice recording isn't there and you either have to know to press 0 or go through a series of automated responses to finally find a person to talk to. I understand the point of trying not to tie up the phone lines with information that can be found on the Internet or phone, but it's terribly annoying to have to go through so much work just to talk to an agent.

Has anyone else experienced this?

1. Press 0.
2. If that fails, just say "AGENT"
3. If that fails, abuse the thesaurus and repeat step 2.

Nearly every automated system out there has a verbal shortcut for speaking to an agent. They may choose not to present it to you, but it's there. The rest of them are entirely useless and warrant similar frustration, but the ratio is in your favor.

What is especially frustrating to me is that my bank doesn't have it's own phone number, apparently. I was trying to call and find a branch close to me when I had first moved here and I ended up talking to someone on another island who didn't know the Big Island at all. When I asked to be transferred to a bank on the Big Island, she said I'd need the specific branch to be transferred. Frustrating.

I was expecting...

Well, nowadays, EVERYONE says "listen carefully as our menu options have changed" and "we are experiencing an unusual volume of calls".

I remember calling Microsoft in order to test for their Microsoft certifications and they would have a, no lie, 5 min recording that you HAD to listen to PRIOR to making any decisions. Companies are trying to answer every common question before being placed to an agent.

My brothers do... definitely a good game, I'm just behind in games in general...like a decade...

The best thing to do, if you finally get a hold of the "right" person at least one time, is to ask them for their extension, their direct number, or a back line number for their department. Especially if its a local business. A lot of banks, hospitals, and businesses will have a second back line phone number, where you'll go straight to a live person, or even better, straight to the person you need to talk to.

A fair--though not all--of the hoops you're forced to jump through are for your own benefit. For example:

As for what you probably most care about, having those menus gets you through faster. Even if it is the same person, that individual knowing the exact nature of your request and already being in the menu to take care of it is a lot better than keeping you on hold longer while she is asking a person about the nature of his problem.

This is ******** though. 9 times out of 10, regardless of what info you provide up front (either through menu navigation or verbal input), the rep on the other side will ask you to repeat it all. Most IVR systems simply provide generic team-based call routing. All that other crap they ask you to put in is useless unless they have an integrated management app that displays that input on the computer when the rep answers the call (something I've personally been involved in, but it's hella expensive to do).

Maybe you've been lucky. Personally, I don't know whether to laugh or cry in frustration when I sign on to Charter.com's online chat support, have to provide my full name, billing address, and account number, only to have the very first rep ask me "Who am I talking with today?" despite my name (which I provided mere seconds before connecting) clearly being printed in the chat log. This is not an isolated experience.

Correct. Which is why most places don't have anything that fancy. The questions being asked serve the purpose of routing you to the correct group of people to address the issue you're calling about. It's not perfect, but it really is better than just calling to one big pool of tier 1 people and then having them try to figure out how to help you, fail miserably, then try to figure out who to send you to, resulting in you being on hold eternally and in some cases ending out in a circle.

To be fair, sometimes the automated menus will do that too, but at least they are efficient about it. And sometimes, one of the menu items exactly matches the reason you're calling and you just press a couple buttons, phone rings and go right to someone who can help you. That doesn't happen often, but every once in awhile it does.

To me, the more irritating part is that since I'm one of those people who generally attempts to solve any problems I run into my self and only call for help as a last resort it's incredibly rare that the menu options actually apply to me. I don't call to make a payment, or to inquire about the balance of my account, or the status of whatever. Those are things I can generally accomplish without having to call the business. If I'm calling you, its because of some other problem that doesn't fit into the standard set of menu options. I suppose what boggles my mind is the fact that those menu options were derived based on the most common set of things people call those businesses for. Yeah. That's scary all by itself.

Lies, my commodore 64 will win every time!! mostly by sitting on yours until it overheats.

Watercooling is a waste. I just stick my components together in a glob of thermal paste.