When I dialed up my car insurance company last week with a billing question, an estimated 1,362 other Americans were phoning a customer service line at that very second. According to Emily Yellin’s “Your Call Is (Not That) Important to Us,” Americans make 43 billion customer service phone calls every year. In a piece for NPR, Yellin further notes that a majority of people experience customer-service-induced rage at one point or another, and 57 percent of those angry clientele drops their business as a result.
There’s something about dialing through extensive automated phone menus and listening to background Muzak that arouses our deepest-rooted sources of ire so that by the time we actually speak to a service rep, we’re ready to burst forth with verbal venom. Granted, with all the bad press about outsourcing call centers and excessive call wait times, some companies have tried to address the problem. Internode, an IP-provider, has even set up a call wait time gauge on their Web site that shows the average wait for the day and the number of calls being queued.
Not all companies are as cognizant of customers’ general lack of patience, but I ran across a slightly vintage post from the wonderful Good Magazine that offered some assistance the next time I have to dial an 800 number. It linked to two sites, Get2Human and Fonolo, which offer shortcuts through an impressive catalogue of company phone menus.
Get2Human provides an extensive list of customer service lines and instructions for speaking to a living and breathing rep. For instance, if I have a question about my GAP credit card, Get2Human says I should “press 000 at each prompt; ignore request for account number.” Done and done.
Fonolo is more of a concierge service that actually does the calling for you. Users give Fonolo their phone numbers and request the company and customer service department they need to speak with. Fonolo then rings up the appropriate number, steers through the automated menu (what they refer to as “deep dialing”) and calls the users’ phones to connect them with the representative. Fonolo can also record the conversation for later playback.
Now, if only we could fast forward through the 20 minutes of Kenny G we’ll have to endure when that service rep puts us on hold. Again.
[Credit: HowStuffWorks]
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