Need a Human Operator? Go Psycho with your Dirty Mouth
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Real human beings are so hard to call these days. When you’re trying to call your friends, you get that robotic messaging service from the phone company. And when you try to call a business for customer assistance you get stuck in a limbo of tone-touch menu options or poor speech-recognition technologies. I just want somebody to talk to! 😥
After you finally find a menu option that will connect you to somebody living and breathing. You often wait in another dimension of half-duplex elevator music … or worse no music at all. Is there anyway to get priority to talk to a warm-blooded creature on the phone?
Many call-routing systems have upgraded from the touch-tone menu to the voice-recognition menu. Unfortunately, this stripped us of the only tool we had, pressing zero continuously until the computer finally realized we were lost souls in the telephone matrix. Now, to speak with somebody, you have to say in perfect English, “Representative” or “Operator” or “Customer Service” in order to speak with a Homo Sapiens creature.
Don’t Reveal Identifying Information
How about priority? I once read that you should never you account number unless you are positive that you are one of their “valued” customers. If you’re giving the company big business, by all means provide that number to the computer. But if you are – like most clients – a lowly customer, try not to give that account number. Many call-routing systems will prioritize the queue by the customer value not “by the order the call was received.”
Get Angry
In order to increase priority in the queue there is one thing anybody can try: go psycho. Seriously! If you’re connected to a voice-recognition system, increase the intensity of your speech and start spewing obscenities! Many voice-activated systems are programmed to recognize an irate client by measuring his or her speech volume and by identifying “choice words” like s^&*, f&*(, d&*9, b&*(^, f#$%^, h&*(, etc. The list goes on and on and on! What’s the harm in trying? Who knows? Maybe you’ll get to talk to THE MAN himself!
Word of Caution
Just make sure you’re alone and out of range of minors’ hearing when you try this. And also, make sure you don’t do this in the office. Working at CVS/pharmacy, I often have to call the insurance companies to get claims information, eligibility data, and rejection overrides. I’m pretty sure it would not go well if I started cussing in front of the customers (or my coworkers for that matter).
It actually pays to be dirty! 🙂
Any questions, comments, or experiences should be fielded below. And I promise, I’ll respond. Or just visit GetHuman for more tips.
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Posted on Wednesday, February 28th, 2007
One Response to “Need a Human Operator? Go Psycho with your Dirty Mouth”
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March 18th, 2007 at 8:48 am
hahahahaha man that is genius gotta try that when i get the chance