So you wanna talk to a human?
How to talk to a human - fast! Call any company and you get a slew of automated menus.
Now, to help you talk to a live human Paul English has collected a number of the fastest ways to cut through the menu clutter and talk to a human. This morning on NPR (National Public Radio) two numbers were tested on the air, Capital One (which sounded like the business services line) and Apple Computer. In both cases a few pushes of the buttons later a live human was on the line. In the case of Capital One, it was somewhere in India, the service rep was helpful and cheerful (without an overly thick accent) and answered the questions posed to him cheerfully. As for Apple, the phone was answered in Sacramento. The rep could have been a little friendlier, but hey it’s Apple.
More cheat codes can be found on Paul’s website, and when it comes back up more on the piece can be found on http://www.npr.org
http://www.paulenglish.com/ivr/
Update
Paul English’s site has been featured on Slashdot. What that means to those who don’t know, is that Paul’s site will go through a period of unavailability, much like NPR did when it aired the story. Over on Slashdot, this is known as the Slashdot effect; a spike in hits to a web site due to being featured on Slashdot leading to slow or even unavailable web pages.
