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> The apparatus therefore permits caller's having special needs to be automatically routed to suitably trained attendants. ... so last time I was on the phone

> The apparatus therefore permits caller's having special needs to be automatically routed to suitably trained attendants. ... so last time I was on the phone with my ISP about the issue of ipv6 availability and after waiting for the surpringly short, yet still infuriatingly long time of 55 minutes, I got a hold of a clueless operator, only to be dropped at exactly the 60 minute mark. Calling back swearing and pressing all the buttons ( so it had been my third or fourth time trying to get through that day... not so proud of it) yielded a different operator after almost 30 seconds. Judging by the way he handled my call (I didn't continue swearing, the people answering the phone are not at fault for shitty staffing decisions), I can only assume he was specially trained. ( I continue to be unsuccessfull in even having any ISP representing operator understand either what ipv6 even is or comprehend that while they claim it's available, it is not. I continue to not understand how they haven't been trained to be just aware that a thing called "the internet protocol" exists while they work for a company whose primary product is the provision of said protocol. ) On the other hand I discovered a shortcut though their automated phone system. I just don't think the reward system is biased to the bettering of humanity there...

deleted 9y ago
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userbinator 9y ago
Swearing also works to get past those horrible "AI assistance bots" in many cases; my default phrase whenever I hear one of those is "I want a human, not a fucking bot!" ...although the one time it didn't work, it turned out the other end was (probably, I'm still not sure...) a human who just acted inanely robotic, and nonetheless completely unhelpful.
- amyjess 9y ago
  > my default phrase whenever I hear one of those is "I want a human, not a fucking bot!" For me it's "Fucking get me to a fucking live person you motherfucking piece of shit!", shouted at the top of my lungs, followed up by a random litany of whatever insults and other curse words come to the top of my head. I cannot stand those systems, and I will use every cheat in the book to bypass them.
dspillett 9y ago
It may not be your mood: if your number is logged as having called several times already that day you might be routed through to a higher level support operator because that is a sign of a more complex problem.
- chrismorgan 9y ago
  I wonder if that in itself could be a shortcut: dial, navigate the menu until you’re waiting for an operator, then hang up; dial, navigate, hang up; dial, navigate, get escalated automatically—total time several minutes rather than the best part of an hour or even more.
  - dspillett 9y ago
    Perhaps, but only if you know they are using such a system. Otherwise if you do it a significant number of times you'll just be wasting time. And it may be time-on-call based rather than just call count.
  - kfrzcode 9y ago
    Usually I just smash the zero key on my phone and 9/10 times I'm directly connected to a human. If that fails I swear obtusely and ask for a "fucking human." If THAT fails I give up. I have no patience for robots who don't listen to me.
    - crankylinuxuser 9y ago
      Yeah, the same things piss me off too. Either let me fix it myself, dont have fucking braindead "policies" that are anti-customer, and bloody respond when someone has a problem. Recently had an ebay stupid. Because a bit was flipped differently than they thought it should be on their backend, gave random bullshit errors. The procedure here should be: fix your goddamned system to autocorrect it, or automatically put me in touch with a chat agent to fix it on their end.
amyjess 9y ago
> Calling back swearing and pressing all the buttons ( so it had been my third or fourth time trying to get through that day... not so proud of it) yielded a different operator after almost 30 seconds. Judging by the way he handled my call (I didn't continue swearing, the people answering the phone are not at fault for shitty staffing decisions), I can only assume he was specially trained. I absolutely, utterly cannot stand systems where they require you to speak your answers into the menu instead of pushing buttons on your phone. I'll try and get out of it by hammering 0 a few dozen times, but if it won't let me do that, I'll just start shouting curse words into the phone until it transfers me to a live person. It usually works.
- smueller1234 9y ago
  Also consider how badly voice systems work for people that aren't native speakers of whatever language is supported...
  - amyjess 9y ago
    Or for people who have a speech impediment, too.
setzer22 9y ago
I usually start all my customer support tickets in all-caps, rude, poorly written english and somehow mentioning a credit card dispute. I've noticed that they get me with a real human way faster this way. Once I'm speaking to a human, though, I act very politely and describe my issue with lots of details so I don't get a generic answer.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

userbinator 9y ago

Swearing also works to get past those horrible "AI assistance bots" in many cases; my default phrase whenever I hear one of those is "I want a human, not a fucking bot!" ...although the one time it didn't work, it turned out the other end was (probably, I'm still not sure...) a human who just acted inanely robotic, and nonetheless completely unhelpful.

amyjess 9y ago
> my default phrase whenever I hear one of those is "I want a human, not a fucking bot!" For me it's "Fucking get me to a fucking live person you motherfucking piece of shit!", shouted at the top of my lungs, followed up by a random litany of whatever insults and other curse words come to the top of my head. I cannot stand those systems, and I will use every cheat in the book to bypass them.

dspillett 9y ago

It may not be your mood: if your number is logged as having called several times already that day you might be routed through to a higher level support operator because that is a sign of a more complex problem.

chrismorgan 9y ago
I wonder if that in itself could be a shortcut: dial, navigate the menu until you’re waiting for an operator, then hang up; dial, navigate, hang up; dial, navigate, get escalated automatically—total time several minutes rather than the best part of an hour or even more.
- dspillett 9y ago
  Perhaps, but only if you know they are using such a system. Otherwise if you do it a significant number of times you'll just be wasting time. And it may be time-on-call based rather than just call count.
- kfrzcode 9y ago
  Usually I just smash the zero key on my phone and 9/10 times I'm directly connected to a human. If that fails I swear obtusely and ask for a "fucking human." If THAT fails I give up. I have no patience for robots who don't listen to me.
  - crankylinuxuser 9y ago
    Yeah, the same things piss me off too. Either let me fix it myself, dont have fucking braindead "policies" that are anti-customer, and bloody respond when someone has a problem. Recently had an ebay stupid. Because a bit was flipped differently than they thought it should be on their backend, gave random bullshit errors. The procedure here should be: fix your goddamned system to autocorrect it, or automatically put me in touch with a chat agent to fix it on their end.

amyjess 9y ago

> Calling back swearing and pressing all the buttons ( so it had been my third or fourth time trying to get through that day... not so proud of it) yielded a different operator after almost 30 seconds. Judging by the way he handled my call (I didn't continue swearing, the people answering the phone are not at fault for shitty staffing decisions), I can only assume he was specially trained. I absolutely, utterly cannot stand systems where they require you to speak your answers into the menu instead of pushing buttons on your phone. I'll try and get out of it by hammering 0 a few dozen times, but if it won't let me do that, I'll just start shouting curse words into the phone until it transfers me to a live person. It usually works.

smueller1234 9y ago
Also consider how badly voice systems work for people that aren't native speakers of whatever language is supported...
- amyjess 9y ago
  Or for people who have a speech impediment, too.

setzer22 9y ago

I usually start all my customer support tickets in all-caps, rude, poorly written english and somehow mentioning a credit card dispute. I've noticed that they get me with a real human way faster this way. Once I'm speaking to a human, though, I act very politely and describe my issue with lots of details so I don't get a generic answer.