If You Need Help, Please Press 1!

Automated customer assistance …. does anybody else recognize this as an oxymoron? Just thinking about having to call my credit card company, telephone company or any other company for that matter makes me shudder and start monitoring my blood pressure. I know we don’t have to deal with these types of calls everyday, but even periodic bad experiences with touch-tone or voice-activated customer service centers can result in long-lasting frustration and resentment. Frankly, I have a small but growing list of companies that I simply won’t do business with because of the difficulties communicating with them. And we are not even discussing outsourced call centers in India in this post. That is a whole other topic and one that I may have to think about long and hard before posting. I tend to say bad words when this issue comes up.

What to do?

Go to get2human.com to find out if the company you need to call is listed. Once you are there you can consult the database of secret phone numbers and codes that immediately get an actual, live person on the line for customer service at nearly 1000 major companies.

For companies that are not currently listed on this website, call the main number, then press 0 (zero) after the voice message starts. You may have to press it several times to override the system. It that doesn’t work, try 0# (zero pound), 0* (zero star), #0 (pound zero) or *0 (star zero). Another trick that sometimes works is using voice activation: Say, agent or human.

Good luck!

**You have permission to reprint in your publication or to your website/blog any articles by Denise Griffitts found on this Website as long as Denise Griffitt’s name and contact information is included. Denise Griffitts, Virtual Assistance Industry Expert, http://internetmasteryblog.com, info @ virtualassistantindustry.com, 888-719-6711