Anyone else tired of......

[michaelman2]

Auto Attendant Switchboards...press this number, press that number...oh and "sorry for the inconvience"... Man!.I just got off of the phone and after "speaking" with a machine for almost 5 minutes I gave up. I miss human beings with good attitudes.

 

[toggleswitch]

or that speak English CLEARLY.

Or that are from here and understand the culture and social graces and can recite happily such phrases as....

Please, would you kindly, may I, How may I assist you?

not:
*YOU HAVE TO*.
*YOU GOT THE WRONG DEPARTMENT YOU HAVE TO CALL*

let me reach right through that phone and smack U up....

 

[petek]

I don't mind them if the selection list is short but when they start cascading down from there with even more options I get annoyed and usually try hitting the 0 key to get a person. What really irks me is you call, the machine answers and then goes into a big long spiel thanking you for calling then giving you a sales pitch of some other information before it even tells you what numbers you can select.
As a matter of fact not one hour ago I dialled the UPS 800 number to get some info and went thru this where I hit 0 and did get an agent pretty quick. When we were having it installed in our office by the phone co. they were pretty good about giving you ideas on setting it up and how many "levels" people would tolerate before hanging up.

 

[Cybrvanr]

I defnitely agree with you on that one. I don't mind going through maybe one layer of menus, for instance, pressing 1 for sales, 2 for service, etc, but I'd better get a human being after that. Of course, the ugly brother to automated menus is voice mail. Seems like every time I call somewhere, I get V.M. and cannot speak to a human. The dirty cousin to all of these is long hold times. To make matters worse, many companies will record messages like "due to the high volume of calls, you may experience long hold times" Well, if you know you're getting long hold times hire more people!!!

Now, one of the other issues that follows just along with our phone troubles is the companies that don't have recieptionists at the doors. The worst is when there is a locked front door to the building, and a phone beside the door...Picking up the phone usually results in the above mentioned issues of phone menus, holding, and voice mails...all the while the person inside is chafing at the bit waiting for you to arrive to fix their equipment! In other locations I have don't have locked doors, I have noticed friendly recieptionists at many offices have been replaced with rude security guards with bad attitudes. They won't even call your contact to tell them you are here, they just turn the phone around and point to it.

 

[petek]

Oh and one other thing that tee's me off when you call some companies like Visa, they ask you to enter your card number, which you enter, then you go thru the process and finally get a person who then asks you for your card number...arrrrgggghhhh

 

[petek]

And I know this is going to sound silly but another thing that adds to the aggravation is the actual voice on the machine. My insurance co which happens to be a very large international one has an automated attendent who you would swear was recorded by a 16 y.o. girl. While her "voice" is normal and clearly understandable it just doesn't have that professional tone to it if you know what I mean.
Most of you must remember "the voice" of pretty much every telephone co in North America a number of years ago. She did all the directory assistance etc. it was pleasant and perky. I always pictured her as being this nice middle aged woman. She was on a tv talk show a number of years ago. It was said she had the most recognizable voice in america and canada. Can't remember her name.

 

[michaelman2]

Pete..that account number being entered and then asked for it again and again irks me too......I am just old fashioned ..I really like people and miss receptionists.

 

[fnelson487]

I'm All For Going Back To The Good Old Days

How I worked my way through high school and college at the phone company. I worked a much bigger toll board but the idea was the same. Here is our own Terry Lattz at the Tarantula Arms switchboard. Number please?

 

[toggleswitch]

Ernestine the operator.

one ringy dingy
a two ringy dingy
a three ringy dingy

http://www.tvacres.com/comm_ernestine.htm

 

[toggleswitch]

Just a suggestion ..........

@##$%^&* adware.

to delete:

Go to:
Internet explorer
Tools
Options
Delete cookies.

This is USUALLY benign to do. Some of your internet favorites may now default to a more general location than before.

You may also generally clean your CACHE, and history while you are there.

CACHE is storage of sorts for graphics of places you visit, so screens load quicker.Don' know about off-line content. Methinks "NO": is safer option.

I'm sure some IT peeps will expand upon these thoughts.

 

[joeekaitis]

 

[DADoES]

Irritates me greatly when the opening message advises "Please listen carefully, our menu options have changed as of June 30" or some such date. Just GET ON with telling me what ARE the options.....

 

[Maytagmom]

OH puleeze don't make me go here.....

SBC here in Texas...my dial up and home phones...just have a problem with internet or phone service, OMG...the menus send you (after 15 mins of punching in numbers) to Mexico, India...ANYPLACE but freakin' Texas...by then I am already drinking gallons of hater-aide.

45 mins for a phone call, only to get hung up on. I've gone through this more times than I care to even think about right now. They dunt speeka no gooda engleesh. Can't even give me an answer to fix my problem.

Learned a while back, just ask for Tier I.

Dell Computers...also HQ'ed here in Texas...JUST AS BAD. Their customer support sucks rocks, and I will NEVER buy another Dell PC, as long as I live.

 

[Brneyedgrl80]

I don't generally mind the automated stuff, sometimes it's quicker than actually talking to a person and normally I try to avoid talking to someone at all costs unless I have no other choice.

Man let me tell you though, you want customer service oriented people, try cingular wireless. I got off the phone with them this morning and they were so customer service oriented that it freaked me out. They were a little to willing to help.

 

[DADoES]

Cingular is SBC.

I detest SBC. But I have Cingular. And SBC since they're the ONLY landline teleco here. Go figure.

 

[toggleswitch]

HA!

Nothing beats the NYS DMV(New York State Department of Motor Vehicles.)

Theirs was the NASTIEST. They LITERALLY had female convicts behind the desks.

(What you lookin' at? I'll cut you MF...)

 

[sikiguya]

Check out this website-it tells you how to surpass the phone systems to take to someone quickly, instead of having to go through the phone trees.

http://gethuman.com/us/

 

[Maytagmom]

It's a conspiracy Glenn

They get ya by the balls, and sqeeeeeeeeeze every bit outta ya. Now with AT & T buying out SBC.....I just can't wait to see how service is now.

I KNEW I shouldn't of posted to this thread 30 mins before a job interview this afternoon...it struck a nerve with me. ha!

Who knows, the girl who interviewed me told me " I was a go getter" and that is what they wanted on this project...

May have good news come next week...LOL

 

[Maytagmom]

Thanks Heather

I printed out that list....interesting.

By the way, if you print it out, it's 20 pages long.

(I am not using my ink and paper ;-) ) LOL

 

[whirlcool]

SBC & AT&T

A match made in hell!

A few weeks ago we called SBC to have our calling plan on our phone changed and a few options (including that horrible call notes system)removed.
We were told that AT&T has taken over, and it took 7, yes 7 phone calls to get the order right.
1. They thought we wanted out phone disconnected, and that's what they did alright. Dicsonnected us.
2. The next day they told us our phone number had already been given out to someone else and we would have to get a new one!
3. Phone turned back on, with yet a third number that they
didn't bother to tell us we had, and especially after we notified everyone of a telephone number change and distributed the new number that AT&T gave us.
4. Guess what? All options are now turned back on. All we wanted was Caller ID and they gave us the whole package.
5. Called to have packages adjusted (removed). They said it would be done by 7pm. Nope.
6. Called AT&T back to tell them it hadn't been done, they said they couldn't find the change order.
7. Called back to ask them what happened and they asked me if I wanted to place a disconnect order. I told the guy that if I have to call one more time, I will show up on his doorstep and peronally beat the crap out of him.
8. Phone finally working as ordered!

 

[toggleswitch]

Threaten to inform the Public Service Commission.
Watch how quick things get moving.

 

[DADoES]

Ha! SBC in my experience ain't afraid of anybody or anything.

 

[toggleswitch]

runs into corner tail between legs, soft yelp.

I tried......

 

[Maytagmom]

Ma Bell is a cheap Mother

Even with AT&T performing capitalist intercourse with SBC, they won't be skeered of a few little peon customers like us. Oh hell no, where are we going to go?? Vonage?? (or whatever the name of that phone company is)
I'm ready to start saving tin cans and string for all my local calls.
Same thing with Time Warner Cable...you won't get any local reception here even with those ugly rabbit ears. At least they answer their phones promptly.
This is the problem with companies nowadays...greedy for money, and to hell with the consumers.
The older I get, the more I miss the good old days too.
I'm ready to go find a town that goes back in time.

 

[launderess]

The Old Days

While they may have been good, it is worth remembering when Ma Bell/AT&T were the only game in town it was VERY easy for them to hold you by the short and curlies.

Though rather young, had relatives and friends of my parents who worked for various regional "Telephone companies" like New York Telephone and trust me you didn't want to get on the wrong side of those people.

Don't pay your phone bill? Service was disconnected, and they would not install new service at that address (never mind to the particular name), unless one could prove they were not the previous person who failed to pay. Same with those who had poor or no credit, no phone.

As "Ernestine" used to joke "We ARE Ma Bell sir, you don't want to mess with us".

My high school had a PBX switchboard, and sometimes early before my first class, the ladies in the office would let me be "operator". The PBX was in the school admistrative offices, and the ladies/secretaries working there took turns working the board. Such fun! Someone would ring up and ask for an "outside line", which only assistant principals and above were really allowed. All calls were logged and of course one knew because they gave the number for you to dial.

Still remember the first time telephoned home from Europe, it took several "long distance/overseas" operators to put the call through. First operator only spoke French, so had to be put through to one who spoke English. The English speaking operator only handled local calls, so had to be put through to one who handled "long distance" and so on. How thrilling to hear each operator speaking to various counterparts as the call was handed off. Finally reaching home with "This is the overseas operator calling, we have call from Paris, France for....

Favourite film featuring telephones?

"Bloody Sunday"

 

[jetcone]

Venus

I'm with you on Dell! My gawd, they had me bouncing from India to Phillipines to finally the US and the US guy was the worst I have to say! I was looking for a memory chip for my now obsolete Dell.
Get this--he told me Dell no longer supplied that chip SO while I was on the phone with him he went out on the net and found the chip which he priced at $199, I looked up the same chip online once he gave me the number and it was listed at=======$99 dollars. I said where is the extra 100 coming in? He said I have to make a living too!!!
Now I am a small business but really that takes the cake!

The absolute worst telephone system is Verizon they put you through so many menus you forgot why you called and then always at the 10th menu the phone goes DEAD everytime!

 

[whirlcool]

But there IS a choice for phone companies in our area.
We can also have MCI Local Service, which sucks harder than AT&T, or "Smoke Signal Communications" which my neighbors across the street have. They are at least 30% cheaper than SBC/AT&T and my neighbors are happy with them. Usually SmokeSignal advertises in Mexican shopping marts. We will try them next, maybe depending on how brave we get.

 

[DADoES]

I have MCI as LD carrier, but I've never seen mention they can carry local. SBC owns the infrastructure anyway.

 

[launderess]

Dell Used To Be GREAT

But like everyone else they joined the "Indian Call Center" rush and now are almost worthless.

When we got our Dell sevearl years ago, one could telephone Dell tech support/customer service and get a real live American who knew their stuff. Sadly the few times in the past several months have needed to call Dell, get someone named "Tom" or "Mary" (all with a heavy Indian accent mind, not that I mind or care, but everyone knows they are not in America, so why the pretense). Anywho it took a few tries but got a good person who solved the problem.

In all fairness to India call centers, used to get some real winners when most tech customer service was based in the United States as well. One could tell they were some bored "teckie" teenage who distained dealing with some oink who was not on their level. One could also tell they were working from home and it always seemed my call was bothering them. Perhaps stopping them from playing online games and such. There were a few I really wanted to reach through the lines and throttle; especially when they would start walking you through steps as if one never clapped eyes on a computer/used Microsoft applications before. Tone was usually not that you were inferior, but that they were superiour in these matters,so please just do as one is told, and don't question me.

L.

 

[pulsator-power]

I hate getting automated insurance pitch messages at work!