Please Listen Closely, As Our Menu Options Have Changed

From the great Freakonomics.com, an article about an online database that’ll get you through the ‘phone trees’ or mazes anytime you have to call some company for customer service. “One solution to Phone Tree Hell is the beautifully named GetHuman database, which provides a nearly encyclopedic list of companies’ phone numbers and the string of menu choices you must press to bypass the phone tree and get to a human. Example: “SUNOCO … 800‑278‑6626 … Press 0 five times, then mumble when prompted for an account number.” I’ve always hit 00000000000, but perhaps some have caught on to that. This is a nice service, I’ll give it a go next time I need to call up one of these places. And why do all of them spout on about, “Please Listen Closely, As Our Menu Options Have Changed”, sorry, but I’m not buying that.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 5th, 2006 at 3:17 pm and is filed under geek and tagged with code, howto. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.

Bob
You're right, it's pure BS. That's a trick the phone tree people use to try and get you to listen closely to all the options. Just about every one you call says that, including ones that haven't changed options in years. The bottom line? THEY'RE WASTING YOUR TIME BY MAKING YOU LISTEN TO THAT BS!

As for account numbers, that's another annoyance. How often have you called the phone company, had the computer tell you to enter your phone number, read it back to you, and ask you to confirm. Then you talk to an agent and they say "what number are you calling about?" I usually reply "the one I already entered" but they claim to not be able to see it. Makes you want to reply 1 800 $#^@ YOU!

ONCE AGAIN, THEY'RE WASTING YOUR TIME!