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

TV Acres

Best General News Website 2024

www.tvacres.com

 

[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.

The IRS Customer Service Phone Number 800-829-1040: Call Support

We call and talk to The IRS Customer Service for you, or wait on hold and get a live rep for you- for free. If you want to do the dialing, waiting, and talking yourself, we tell you the best time to call, how to talk to a real person, and what to say.

gethuman.com

 

[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