And then half the time you get to the rep and you’re just beyond pissed off because you’ve heard the same menus 5 times now trying to get a rep.
I’ve started yelling “get me a fucking representative or I’m hanging up” at the bots. It works shockingly often, especially if moneys involved. Then I’m nice and polite to the rep. Isn’t their fault.
Though if I ever meet one any of the people that work on these systems, they better hope it isn’t in a dark alley…
I’ve heard some systems can detect the tone and irritated people go through easier
I have no idea where I got this information so don’t quote me on this
I used to work adjacent to this space, and yeah - it’s certainly a thing, but from my understanding, it’s not particularly widely used, and where it is, it’s FAR more commonly used for assessing rep performance and the like rather than call queue triage.
It’s definitely a thing. I’ve called two different places first time I lost my shit on the menu then got a person. 2nd time I tested it with “are you fucking kidding me?!” Got a rep. I plan to continue until it doesn’t work.
This is definitely a concept for emails/tickets so i assume it is for calls.
It’s called “sentiment” analysis.
Priority can also be given in some systems by customer value.
Just had to deal with this with Delta. They moved my flight to a way shittier route. When they do that or make significant schedule changes, you can get your money back even on the “non refundable” tickets. I cancelled and opted for a full refund. Delta sent an email that they were refunding my card. 2 weeks goes by, and no refund. I had to call, lie about the reason for my call so I could get to a human because any time I said what I actually was calling for it would kick me to an automated system that couldn’t solve my problem. I think I said I was buying a ticket or something. Then after 45 minutes hold time, get transferred, to another 15 minute hold. Eventually got to talk with someone and got my money back, but FFS, 3 weeks and a 1+ hour phone call to fix their fuck up is ridiculous.
Makes you think twice the next time you need to chase a refund.
You’re right. Next time I should just let business daddy Delta take my $700. I can’t believe I was so foolish to call them on their bullshit.
Even if you do speak to a representative, most of the time they can’t help you because they’re only trained to help solve issues that can be solved online.
Most of the time they are third party companies hired out by the main one who have literally zero ability to resolve your issue.
Hit 0 and keep hitting it. It doesn’t work as often as it used to, but it works pretty often.
Also if you need something from spectrum just ask to speak with retentions
Or “Agent”
I usually spam the 0, *, and # keys while saying “representative” and can get through. Doesn’t always work, and sometimes it goes through a couple different robot menus, but I’d say I get to a human about 80% of the time
“Operator” also works in some systems.
‘Cancel’ is a other good one
Com. Goddamned. Cast. 🤬
This is the realest meme I’ve ever seen
Some systems can tell when you start swearing angrily and will push you into the human queue. So something like “I just want a human being you motherfucking piece of shit!” Is a viable strat.
I think my wife got hung up on by an automated phone tree because she was swearing while trying to get to a real person. Pissed her off even more.
Yeah that happened enough that I’ve stopped using that trick.
On the plus side now they use AI so I get to spend 10 minutes trying to explain to a computer that I have an issue that it can’t help with because I wouldn’t be fucking calling otherwise
I can see their logic. It’s bullshit though, and not doing them any favors, but it’s not likely hurting them either.
There has been on going repairs “in my area”, even though I haven’t experienced any downtime. everytime I call, even if it’s not related to it, I get 3 repeats of menus and after telling me again there’s repairs, it hangs up on me. At this point I’m just waiting on the competitor to get to me, its already 2 streets down. I’ll call my state representative and tell them I’ve been trying everyday to cancel my shit and get hanged up on. I’ll just tell my bank not to process it as I’m unable to cancel the service. Idgaf at this point. Fuck Comcast.
Oh you wanna talk about Comcast? We moved from one house and had our own router. When the Comcast guy was setting up the line at the new house he noticed that our router was already assigned to our old address. He said he’d call and take care of that for us. Nice enough guy. Fast forward 3 months, a last from Comcast call is and tells us that we have an outstanding balance at our last house… the one that didn’t have a router. We told her we weren’t paying that because we were under the impression that the service guy took care of all that when he transferred the router, and the fact that there was nothing using the internet at that location. She just said OK and hung up. Few days later we get a call from a debt collector. Fucking Comcast reported us to a debt collector because we didn’t think it was right to pay a bill for services we couldn’t even use.
Side note. Please don’t rent your modem / router through Comcast or any other ISP. They are so cheap now. If the ISP is charging even $5 / month, (I think it’s more now but back when I bought mine, I believe that’s what they were charging) that’s $60 / year. A modem is $50 for a decent DOCSIS 3.0 that supports gig speed. Routers are not that expensive either, and very easy to set up. If you buy the hardware, it’s a one time expense. The rentals you are paying for in perpetuity.
