Things that make you go hhmm.... 22

Automated phone systems.....

What do you think of these damnable things?

I was trying to contact my credit card company and my internet service provider last weekend and ran into these things.

First, the one for the isp asks which official language you would prefer, not so bad. Then it asks for the phone number with the area code, still not really bad but I do have a sight impairment, still, it is easier than the credit card one. It then asks for the "pin" number.

This is the stupid part. It tells you where to find the pin but that number certainly is not what it is looking for. And I can't find any other number that works at all but all of that is kind of moot. It then thanks you, whether you punched a number in or not and then kicks you to the support agent. So why have this step if it is not needed? Are they figuring on a good number of people being stymied and hanging up? Fewer people to deal with? Not sure.

The next one is the credit card company. All you need is the number of the card and you can find out the balance and how much credit is available. This would be a good thing for those that steal these. Not so great for the card holder. Once you get by this you can actually just hit the "0" and get by the rest. At least they gave a way out. So, that really makes the rest of it a waste of money, doesn't it?

One other company that I encountered was for a piece of electronic equipment that had an issue. This particular line required verbal responses to work. I could not get this stupid piece of crap to understand what I was saying. How are you to know what response it will take to get you where you want to go? I am a senior level technician and nothing obvious could get me through it. Thank Christ I could punch the "0" here too, to get to a real person quickly.

A waste of money? Could they put the money to a better use? I think the answer is yes. Get an extra person to answer the calls and avoid all of the irate people just from dealing with the damn phone systems in place.

Thoughts