phone calls
 

I was reading the thread about telemarketing (http://www.quiltingboard.com/general...d-t221499.html).

It got me thinking about my calls to various companies and the government.
I get so frustrated when I have to deal with them..."if you want .....please press 1: ....please press 2" etc.

Then when you press the proper key..there's another lot of the same..."press 1 for... "etc.

Sometimes you are there pressing keys until finally they say..."all our lines are busy, your call is important to us...please hold for a customer representative."
Likely as not, you have to hold for a long time.

I can see the advantage for the company but it drives me crazy. If the feature is available, I'll now press the pound key and wait for someone to answer. This works for some companies but not all.

Or when they dont give you the option you want. I just press "0" and see if it takes me to on operator.

I, too, press "0", hoping to get a real person.

I too keep pressing "O" until it connects me to a live person. It is maddening.

Sometimes if you scream obscenities into the phone, it will connect you to a real person. No kidding, they really have systems to tell when a customer is getting irate.

I hate those disembodied computer voices. "I'm sorry, I didn't understand you." The worst ones are the voice-activated, you can't cough, say anything to another person in the room with you, or listen to the TV or radio, they pick it up and...

"I'm sorry, I didn't understand you."

I was told once (by the responder) to just speak over the recording and ask for REPRESENTATIVE! It always has worked for me. I's so frustrating when they go thru the catalog and none of the suggestions apply. I WANT A REAL PERSON! WAH!!! :-(

Pressing "0" works most of the time for me, if not, then I hang up. If I need to get through to someone, I will try to find a website with an email address.

The company I worked for just changed over to automated answering - prior to that we got so many compliments about having a real person answer the phone. Now you go through the automated jungle. I really dislike that process.

They never have the option that I want.

If the company does the press 1, press 2, I keep hitting 0. If they have the disembodied zombies, I keep asking for a human being. If they don't want to hire receptionists, they can put up with irate customers. When I worked at one company, most departments had people who 'covered' for t he receptionist for lunch and breaks. I enjoyed doing it when it was my turn and I could run a 20 line board. I found people calling were much friendlier than the previous place of employment when a none human answered. By the time, they got to your department, they were rattled and took it out on WHOEVER answered. (I didn't stay there long)

I use my answering machine to screen 800 calls. Never answer them !IF I answer and it is a tm I ask for an address to tell their co .......they hang up FAST!!! Hugs

next time they call say sargent ubanks speaking. may i help you

I keep telling myself that when I get a telemarketing call I am going to pretend to be a recording and see what happens when I tell them to go thru all these steps. I usually just ignore them and not answer the phone but I have been tempted to try this. I also get so frustrated and I do many times keep pressing the "O" button. This is one of the reasons I prefer to send an email when possible plus I have my answer in writing and not a he said she said .

I put my phone on speaker then I can do other things and move around in other rooms if I have to. Doesn't make the wait seem so long and I can still accomplish something instead of sitting and waiting for them to get to me.

When I receive a telemarketing call on my cell phone, I save the number under "Do not answer." They only get me once! CardServices has been the greatest illegal offender, and totally disregard the Do Not Call lists. Can't figure out how they get away with it. Seems to be one of those situations where the government acts like they're doing something for the consumer, but doesn't follow through on the penalties.

Every since we did the Do Not call listing our "unwanted calls" have stopped. Except for the person who had this number before us; the police were looking for him. I finally was so fed up I called the DA who had left a number on my answering machine and told this person that the previous person has not had this number for years .. She listened and made sure there were no more phone calls to our number from any police enforcement agency for the previous person.
A friend holds on the line till the call is either picked up by a human or the call ends, if its a recording (at the end of the call with an answering machine) she tells them she has their number and will report them if she has anymore -she told me that usually works for her when the telemarketers call. If its a human she tells them to take her off their listing of calls and has their number to report it.

Like "dd" I press "0". if there is a local office, I call them and tell them I don't have time to punch buttons for 30 minutes only to be told to do it again and then talk to someone, (I've press "1" for English) and can't understand them because they're half way around the world. Get's my dander up and panties in a knot!

they say if you press #0 you will get a live person. I know everytime I do it I do get sent to a live person.

I don't know if that will work here in Australia but I'm going to give it a go. Thanks for the info.
Last night I had an incoming call and when I answered it was a machine talking to me and it wanted me to do a survey about the upcoming federal election. Needless to say I hung up. That has happened once before and I consider it rude beyond belief.

I know a couple who moved into a new area maybe thirty years ago, got a new phone number for their small in-home business, and it had been a reservations number for a hotel and was still listed in the phone book and with information as a hotel number. If the regular reservations number was busy, the call would go to their number, which was one digit higher. They got dozens of phone calls each day and sometimes in the middle of the night and the phone company wasn't helpful, stating that the hotel would have to initiate action and pay a rather large fee to change the number. The hotel couldn't care less and didn't want to be bothered. The couple already had business cards and stationery printed and didn't want to change it. Finally, in frustration, they started agreeing to whatever reservations were wanted, quoting very low room rates, but took no credit card, deposit, or financial information. Before long, the hotel figured it out, paid the phone company's fee to break the contract for the block of numbers, and gave this couple an apology.

I had this happen when I called a non profit charity several months ago to make a rather large donation. I got the royal runaround on the phone, as mentioned above, and when I got the operator she hung up on me once, kept me on hold too long once, and transferred me to the wrong person once.

Do you think that company got the donation?

Yes, isn't that funny how we all witness such poor customer srvc. By the time you have reached a person the office hours are closing and they hang up on you.. PO'd

I press "0" to take me to the operator but then again back to pressing "1". Oh Well. DH just tells those who call us he has a T-Bone waiting on him that's hot an rare, that he doesn't want cold. then hangs up. If I don't recognize the number I direct them to the menu. LOL! KARMA!

The worst is when you go through the Press 1, Press 3, etc., wait and wait, then finally get a live person who transfers you and in the process, it goes to dial tone. I see colors! This just happened last Friday.

And when you are on a prepaid cell, getting the runaround and being put on hold costs money.
Back in the old days of land lines and phones on the wall, my mother would hang the receiver on the side of the phone and let the TM talk to air.
When I would get calls from TMs, I would say "Please tell your supervisor I do not like this kind of advertising, and if I need your service, I will find another company to provide it".

Many of these calling services just dial phone numbers in sequence. Others originate in foreign countries, so don't care about our 'do not call' lists.

I hate when you have to push all of those options and finally get the option to talk to someone and the first thing they want you to do is repeat all the answers to the questions you just pushed all of those buttons for. Really, if they aren't going to give the info to the techs to make it faster then don't waste our time either.

I hate telemarketers and rarely talk to them. I've had this one call that has been coming in for months now and I answer it just to have to hold a phone to my ear to hear nothing, then it goes dead. Well last night after a few seconds someone did say something, he ask if he could talk to the homeowner. I told him since he didn't know my name meant he was trying to sell me something and I don't do solicitations. He hung up really fast. Some of the are relentless and you can tell them to stop calling but they don't. I had one once that would call several times a day wanting me to refinance my house, I would never do that with someone cold calling and harassing me. Finally, one day when they called I just started screaming at the top of my lungs. They hung up and never called back. I had a magazine that kept calling me wanting me to buy mags, wouldn't listen. Finally one day I said yes, I wanted several of her different mags. She got all excited and said really. I said sure, I'm in the middle of a bankruptcy and I can get your mags and then add them when I file and not have to pay for them, right. She hestitated and said right and then hung up. Never heard from her again either. Its sad you have to go to extremes to have privacy.

Many times if I just start poking random numbers instead of the Select 1 or 2, I get transferred to a person.

Funny...15+ years ago we had to change our phone system around at work because we discovered there was a hidden "feature" that if someone hit zero from any menu, they'd end up talking to the CEO!! We never knew this until people just started doing it. We got that fixed pretty quick, as you can imagine.

I used to work in the phone center....it's a really difficult job. (I work at a credit union) Now I'm a programmer and it's an easier job in a lot of ways...I never get yelled at anymore! But I do sort of miss talking to our Members - you get a crowd of regulars that call all the time and you get to know them after awhile, it can be kind of fun. Some people are so crazy!