This is minor, but a rants a rant. You know what I hate? Those stupid computer generated voices on the phone when you try to acquire services. Let me explain.
Since monday night I’ve been living in a motel room with my wife and 3 cats. I’m tired. We’ve spent the week (after getting over jet lag on tuesday) looking for a new home. You know the drill…you look at a place, you like it, the spouse hates it, and vice versa. Well we finally found a great place in nice neighborhood that is literally less than a half mile from one of the gates of Fort Bragg. Great! I signed the lease this afternoon, laid down a chunk of cash on the security deposit and first months rent and then returned to the motel to have the utilities put in my name.
All utility services had the “if you want to do this press 1, if you want to do this press 2…etc” thing. But the electric company had the thing where a computer says “please say your name”.
I say may name. then the voice asks if I said ****** or *******. There were other questions like “What is your birthday” and “what is your SSN”. Its only a pain when the stupid computer doesn’t understand what you say.
Thats annoying at the best of the times but what really got under my skin was when it said “Say the address you wish the services installed.”
I had to repeat it no less than 9 times. It still didn’t get it until the 9th. By that time i was losing my temper. Keep in mind I was tired and hungry also. My wife had a bucket of chicken and was munching out, but since she insisted that I take care of the utilities at once when returning I couldn’t eat. When she told me to calm down while scarfing down chicken and cole slaw I had to grit my teeth and say “You’re…not…helping…honey…”
So then I get connected to an actual person. Who asked me the same fucking questions that the voice did! ***So um, what was the freaking reason the computer asked me this stuff for? ***A time sink? It took all I had to be pleasant to the person on the phone. After all its not their fault. Man, i hate those things. They are one of the biggest reasons I hate dealing with any large companies. I suppose if I wasn’t tired and hungry I’d have been less grumpy. The trump is after I had seen to it that the gas, electricity, cable, phone ansd internet were in the works I went to get some food…and my wife had eaten all of the cole slaw…I had to take a short walk to not Hulk out. Oh, and to get a six pack.
Oh god. May I join you in rage? I FUCKING HATE talking to a machine. Not only that but’s so stupid. I’ve found systems where they disable touch tone input. Say I needed to input my phone number. Instead of just dialing it on a key pad that’s designed for dialing phone numbers I have audibly say the number one number at a time. There isn’t enough rage in the universe to respond to that level of bloody mindedness. What the fuck?
I wanna rip the testicals off the subhumans who make those things.
Sometimes I think I must be the only person in the US to have figured out that saying “operator” or “representative” will get you a human being. Try it sometime.
Then you just tell them you are having a hard time understanding them, and ask to be transferred to someone else. I do it when necessary, and have never had a problem.
I went through the compu-phone thing with Bank of America when I lost my ATM card and it was a large slice of hell on earth. I cursed the system long enough and vehemently that I got a living human on the phone and once they took over getting my replacement card was a snap. But his best advice? Just say operator. And keep saying until you get one.
They never offered that as an option. Seriously. because I would have done THat if they had. I may be prone to losing my temper but I can hear, follow instructions and I’m not stupid.
it was around 430 pm BTW. Seriously if they had said "At any time just say operator to be connected" I would have done so, and in my experience most of those computers will automatically transfer you to a living person if the computer doesn’t understand you multiple times. I*** had to repeat myself 9 times. ***I never said anything about hating customer service either. I did say I was not angry at the person that I eventually spoke to because I knew that the issues I had with the computer ***were not her fault. ***
They rarely list it as an option, but both “operator” and “representative” are default-recognized words for most computer answering systems now.
And yeah, I agree they’re frustrating. I would much rather just get a human to talk to right off the bat, and let them direct my call.
On a similiar theme, I refuse to use the self-checkout at stores where they have cashiers. I’d rather a cashier was working at each register than 1 person working for 4 self-checkout registers.
I just remember various objections I’ve had. One time I tried to get a track phone at dollar general not having a phone or access to the internet I left a half hour early for work and planned on registering it on a payphone. Well it does it by inputing the phone’s serial number into the registration program. Then it gives you eleventibillion numbers to put in the track phone.
Well I just assumed I could use touch tone to input the cellphone’s serial number. WRONG it doesn’t tell you touch tone input doesn’t work either. It just keeps asking you to repeat it. I guess it’s my fault for assuming the phone numberpad would okay for entering numbers. It failed then on the 5th try I got rerouted to someone with a thick accent. Eventually I got so I could decipher what he was saying but I had to go in the middle of it so I wouldn’t be late for work.
Then I tried on the way home. Still having not figured out the goat fondlers who set up the phone didn’t set up touch tone entry. 5th try failed once again rerouted only this time they told me it was closed.
WHY THE FUCK WOULD THEIR MONKEY SALAD TOSSING ASSES THINK IT’D BE OKAY TO REROUTE ME TO A CLOSED CALL CENTER?
Then I called back an realized I had to speak the numbers to the machine, and I got farther but it’d always screw up and miss understand one number so I have to start over. Didn’t matter how careful I was in my pronunciation. English speaking humans have no trouble understanding me, but that computer couldn’t.
pointlessly rerouted to closed call center again. I was on their dime since it’s an 800 number so I called back and on the 4th try got it.
What reason could they have for disabling touch tone input? Other then being aids infested whores that is.
I agree with ya there, bro. self checkout is only convenient when you have a few items. When you have a person with a cart full in front of you it takes longer than if they just went to the cashier. the one person usually watching can only help one customer at a time.
My surname is rare enough that when I say it into those automated fucking things they spew back “Is your name Mendoza, Miyasaki, or McGillacuddy?” They’re a load of shite.
For me it’s less about convenience, and more about doing what I can to make sure more business have to employ people. Every time one of those self-checkout registers gets put up, an employer is able to cut their payroll by 1 person. And I like dealing with people, and I like to see people employed.
Also, even tho the store has cut their costs, I don’t ever see them passing the savings on to the customer, however slightly.
(bolding mine)The problem could have been with the pay phone, not the registration system at the other end. I don’t know if it’s still true, but most pay phones used to be set up so that the phone would disable the keypad after you connect. This used to be a way to minimize drug deals, back when drug dealers used payphones and pagers. Now that everyone has cell phones, it’s rather pointless, but it wouldn’t surprise me if they still set them up that way.
