HN Explorer

Phone menus only exist so you can spin your wheels while on hold

3 points by fallingfrog ↗ HN
Customer service phone menus are just there to get you to spin your wheels while you’re on hold.

I used to work as a CSR, for a company that shall not be named, and I picked up the line with the same line every time: “Thanks for calling **, how can I help you?” Every once in a while, someone would respond with, “I just spend ten minutes going through menus and punching in account numbers, why don’t you know why I’m calling?”

Folks, the fact is, none of the information you punched into the automated system makes it to the representative. I didn’t even realize we had such a system, having never called into our own office from an outside line. Every call was just dropped to us without context, because it’s just as quick for me to just ask you what you want as it is for me to look it up on a computer. The real reason those systems exist, ours at least, was just to get the customer to spin their wheels for a while while they’re on hold. That’s it. So enjoy your next interaction with the $megacorp computer system! It means nothing until you get a real human being on the line.

3 comments

[ 4.2 ms ] story [ 17.3 ms ] thread
theandrewbailey
I'm just as frustrated when I call a restaurant to order something and they ask for my phone number. Don't they have caller ID? They could read it off to confirm.
randomlurking
The idea that we are living in 2021 and phone menus are not used to route users to a fitting agent, or that no caller information is available for the agent is funny, but not true.

It might be that your company did exactly that, probably some calls were routed away from you if the topic was something specific. I really doubt that even 20% of the company with a phone menu don‘t use it to route calls or give the agent additional information

fallingfrog
Just yesterday I was on the phone with my insurance company because I needed to reset my password, snd I got stuck in the following in the following infinite loop:

“What do you need help with today”. - My account. “Great, can I get your account number?” -enter number. “Ok, now that I have your account, what do you need help with today?” -my account “Great, can I get your account number?”

Etc etc.

I complained about this on Facebook and one of their reps showed up and said, “oh, just tell the automated system that you want to buy car insurance right now, then it will connect you to a human.”

I did this, and it worked, and she answered with “how can I help you” and then I got my account unlocked right away. She clearly didn’t know before she picked up the phone what I needed.

I’m pretty sure that my experience is the norm not the exception.

Remember: the company has to pay for the representative’s time, but the customer’s time is free. They don’t want you to have wandered away from your phone while on hold. So they give you a task to perform while you wait. It also helps to encourage you to get your account numbers and stuff ready and have your paperwork in front of you when the rep picks up.