I hate using the phone to contact businesses of any kind.
I hate voice activated menus.
I hate the on-hold music, usually crashing with static.
I hate that while I’m on hold being forced to listen to the on-hold music, crashing with static, I can’t use data when I’m on hold on my Android device. (There are some ways around that, supposedly.)
I hate spelling my difficult last name every time.
I hate repeating my perfectly ordinary first name which, despite being a typical and common name in any English-speaking country, is surprisingly difficult for the majority of people I talk to on the phone. (I’ll give you a hint: In French it would be Jacques.)
I hate the recurrent refrain, “Sir, I can hardly hear you.”
I hate when I can’t hear them because they aren’t speaking into their handset or their headset mic is too far away from their mouth.
I hate repeating twelve or fifteen figure account numbers over and over–"It’s not four-one-two-nine, it’s FOWER-NIYUN-TWO-FIYIV.
I hate having to yell and repeat myself.
I hate using the phone to contact businesses of any kind.
I also hate the phone talking thing. I reduce the horror by doing as much as possible online, instead of on the phone. If it must be done on the phone, I use a land line. It doesn’t remove all the pain points, but it helps.
I hate phone trees, they never have the choice I need, it seems. If you choose one that sorta kinda nearly almost might be it you get shunted to a stupide voice recording that then ends your call.
I see a business that really, REALLY doesn’t want to talk to you. And hope you’ll just give up in frustration and let it drop. The bank especially.
Every time I say my last name I get a laugh, then I spell it out, and I get; oh, okay, I thought you said something else. It is so sad. The word they think I am saying is never a last name, ever. I want to tell those people to just grow up. OTOH, I had a dentist awhile ago whose name was Faulkoff, and he had a red-neck receptionist who would answer his phone “Fuckoff and associates”. I swear to god that is exactly how she said it!
It seems to work for me to not choose any option. The voice then says “I’m sorry, I did not get that. Please try again.” After 2 rounds of this, I get put through to a human being who tends to be very friendly and knowledgeable. (I think they assume that you are elderly or in need of special assistance if you don’t manage to choose options, so they put you through to specially trained people.)
In addition to everything mentioned in the OP, I use a hearing aid that makes phone talking difficult. All of my communications with friends is done via text. The only phone conversation I’ve had with a friend in the past five years was with my gf in a situation where texting was impossible.
I reward businesses with alternatives to talking on the phone with my business.
I don’t mind using the phone if an actual understandable English-speaking person answers the phone. But I hate the “press 1” menus, and I REALLY hate the voice activated ones. It’s also frustrating to punch in your account number and DOB and whatever else they ask, and then whenever someone comes on the line, they make you give them that information all over again.
I’ve wondered about this one, too. Maybe they’re worried that some evil identity thief will lurk behind me as I’m keying in my account number, then slash my throat, pick up my phone, and pretend to be me.
I also hate talking to people in noisy call centers where you can hear dozens of other people yammering in the background.
Oh, and USAA, stop asking me for my “phone password” when I call you. We’ve been through this already. I don’t remember setting up a phone password, so obviously I don’t know what it is.
Most phone trees have the (often not mentioned) option of pressing zero to go directly to an operator. If I can’t find an option that fits the issue I’m calling about, I just press zero. 9 times out of 10 I get an actual person.
And I HATE having to repeat the account information I JUST freaking keyed into my phone.:mad:
I’m guessing they use the number to route you to the right department, but for whatever reason they can’t/won’t pass the number to the rep. It could be that the rep has the number but people type them incorrectly so often that the rep has to compare what you tell them and what you entered on the keypad.
Hit “0” about 15 times in a row, and you usually get sent to a real, live person. Sometimes screaming into the phone seems to work, too, but I usually opt for the first method. Just be glad the business you’re dealing with lists a phone number to call. It seems to be increasingly popular to only give on-line options.
My previous car insurer had the worst one; not only did it have a stupidly long phone tree, but, if you called after 6pm or on a weekend, regardless of which combo you selected, you -eventually- got through to the claims department.
The claims department only dealt with new claims, existing claims were a whole different department, and the claims department had no access to their system. The existing claims department had all gone home. It took about 15 minutes of selecting options, crackly hold music, typing in my account number and repeatedly being subjected to a chirpy recorded message about how marvellous their website was to find that out.
UGH ! I can’t stand the robotic answering machine !! My speech defect made it impossible to use it and I can’t understand what being said and never know which number I have to press . I end up waiting forever to find out I press the wrong number . When I finally get a person and tell them " I can’t hear them " I am told by the person " I can hear you fine !" I hate saying I am HOH or asking the person to talk slower so I can understand them better they start yelling at me instead or talk in a damn monotone voice . I have my daughter made importance calls for.
I find singing along to the hold music an adequate coping mechanism.
Once in a blue moon when a call tree asks for a compaq number (like in call-back recordings), I feel kinda inadequate because I never had one. (I think)
I can be a bit of a dick if I’ve had to wait too long, and sometimes I’ll accidentally-on-purpose start hitting dials (“oops, sorry”) just to annoy the poor soul on the other end, usually to interrupt them.
I remember a Gahan Wilson cartoon in The New Yorker showing a skeleton on the phone, a cobweb between receiver and hand, and the above quote drifting out of the receiver.
With me it’s more like 4 or 5 times out of ten, and if I don’t reach anyone, I get to enjoy the exuberant pleasure of going back to the beginning of the menu again.
If a chat option is available, I generally use that instead of the phone. The problem of things being misheard is eliminated, and (usually) you can save a transcript of the session.
I want to talk to a human, but I don’t want to go through any more menus or go through a bunch of transfers. A couple of weeks back I tried to use the direct number given to me and got a message saying the number was invalid. I didn’t have the main number but guessed it was the same with 000 for the last 3 digits. That was right, I got the menu, got to the department, used the search by name feature, and ended up with the same message again. I went through the process again but this time pressed 0 and someone picked up. I told them who I wanted to reach and that I kept getting a message that it wasn’t valid number. I was told that was sometimes a problem but they said they would transfer my call to his extension, and I got the same message again. To get connected I sent him a WebEx invite and we used that to talk.
Ha! Voice recognition is a pain. My dogs have a bad habit of starting to bark whenever I get on the phone, and their barking has more than once been picked up as an answer by the voice response system.