Yesterday I was on the telephone with my credit card company, waiting to discuss a bill, and I coughed. Once. Softly.
Immediately the electronic voice on the other end said, “Sorry, but I don’t understand that response.”
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Previously a lifelong Democrat, born in New York and living in New England, surrounded by liberals on all sides, I've found myself slowly but surely 
December 20th, 2011 at 11:37 am
I hate these automated, supposedly “smart’ answering phone trees, where you are given a selection of choices and sub tree branches –none of which is usually the one you want–and in which the AI often then misinterprets what it asks you to say, and dumps you back again–often repeatedly–into the beginning of the phone tree again.
I know it does absolutely no good, but it is sometimes “liberating” to curse out the system while it cycles you through this process for the forth or fifth time.
Equally infuriating are those systems that tell you that “there might be a wait” to speak to a human “representative/agent” and then, if there is such a wait just says “goodby,” and summarily hangs up.
December 20th, 2011 at 5:02 pm
I have an uncommonly deep voice. No matter how hard I try to enunciate each word clearly, these automated systems seem unable to understand what I say beyond yes and no. It is infuriating, exhausting, and dispiriting. It feels like I’m being discriminated against because my voice has a certain pitch that is uncommon. Ugh!! Wouldn’t it be good for employment numbers to actually put more people back in these jobs? And it would be good for customer satisfaction. Of course, that doesn’t seem to matter these days.
December 20th, 2011 at 5:05 pm
If you say “dispute a bill” you automatically get hung up on.
December 21st, 2011 at 7:23 am
Hey, at least it was listening to you.
December 21st, 2011 at 7:28 am
My mother was once on the phone with one of those disembodied electronic voices trying to renew a prescription. The voice asked for the prescription number, which she couldn’t immediately locate. As she fumbled with her papers looking for it, the voice repeated, “I didn’t hear that response” a couple of times, unnerving her to the point that she muttered “Oh, help!” to herself. The voice responded, “I heard you say that you need help,” and summarily reconnected her to the automated “help” function — which was, of course, no help at all.
I have learned that firmly repeating, “I want to talk to a real person” often enough sometimes eventually results in a transfer to just such an elusive being.
December 21st, 2011 at 11:01 am
Cost is the real driver of this phenomenon. To have a real person, an employee, answer the phone is very expensive compared to the cost of the voice activated system.
Even though hiring a human to interact with the customers would go a long way towards improving customer service, there is a school of thought within today’s management circles that believes platitudes are an adequate substitute for real service, while firing the receptionist and replacing her with a voice-mail machine increases the quarterly bonus.
Sad but true.
December 21st, 2011 at 11:32 am
Not to live up to the stereotype of the “old curmudgeon,” but I don’t actually believe that you can win, these days.
What might seem like the pref”erable alternative of a live “agent/representative to talk to–given our school systems today–is not much better; people–usually foreigners but sometimes ill-or its seems sometimes non- educated native English speakers– who can’t speak recognizable English, people who are uninformed about the product or policies of their company, people who obviously just don’t care, who are surly, or who are just plain stupid–often make trying to extract any sort of definitive help or answer from such “representatives” a very frustrating and un-enjoyable task.
December 21st, 2011 at 12:04 pm
Wolla Dalbo: you are so right.
The live people are more machinelike than the machines, except when the live people become annoyed, which is too often.
December 21st, 2011 at 12:49 pm
There are systems that can recognize frustration in your voice and route you to a person. I put on an agitated voice and say ‘representative’ repeatedly, louder. It usually works. Of course, the real person is not always competent.
Whenever I can, I try to use the Live Chat help that many organizations have. This way, I can multi-task and not get too upset.
December 21st, 2011 at 1:07 pm
JuliB: I don’t know, but I don’t think it’s the tone of voice that gets you where you want. I think it’s the word “representative.”
I do the same, only I say “agent.” After about 20 repetitions, something usually happens and I find myself talking to a real person. And then the fun begins.
December 21st, 2011 at 2:03 pm
I abhor what i find to be the unacceptably sloooow “live chat” too.
You sit there and wait for your “representative” to type, type your response and then wait again, they are typing the answer to your last question, when you are typing out a clarification or the next question, and the questions and the answers to them usually get out of synch after about two or three back and forth questions and answers. I find this, also, to be an extremely frustrating way to communicate. and–after a couple of bad experiences– I avoid it like the plague.