Phone Tree Hell - Newhouse - Secrets for reaching a real human being

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Newhouse A1

Secrets for Reaching a Real Human Being

BY SHERYL HARRIS
c.2006 Newhouse News Service

Call a company these days and your fingers are likely to be worn to nubs before you ever reach a live human being.

Worse, some companies hide their phone numbers, forcing you to go exclusively through e-mail, which is only OK if they bother to respond.

So how do you stalk that elusive creature known as a customer service representative?

A great place to start is www.gethuman.com.

Gethuman.com not only reveals hundreds of hard-to-find customer service numbers, it gives you instructions on how to defeat the automated voice-response system to get to a living being.

This is no small trick. Once most of us figured out we could push "0" to get to an operator, companies scrambled to find new ways to shut us out.

For example, gethuman.com says that if you're tired of wasting cell phone time calling AAA's 800 number, you should repeatedly punch 0 when you hear the intro.

At e-trade, the trick is to hit the `#' key four times.

But to get a person at Amazon.com, once you dial the 800 number, you don't say or punch anything else.

If companies really wanted to talk to their customers, would they make it this hard?

Kayak.com founder Paul English's frustration in getting customer service numbers led him to post a few on his blog. "Before you know it, he had people sending him secret numbers," said gethuman project manager Lorna Rankin. Customers e-mailed numbers. Employees mailed secret numbers.

The outpouring convinced English to found the Web site a little more than a year ago. It now lists shortcuts for getting to customer service at several hundred large companies that either hide their phone numbers or force consumers to sit through a seemingly endless series of prompts to get to a human being.

Another valuable but underused source of customer service numbers is the Better Business Bureau, which keeps tabs on not just the big companies you'll find at gethuman, but also regional or local companies.

BBB company reports frequently contain the name of a customer service manager so you don't have to dither around talking to 10 people who only have first names (or worse, operator numbers) and no power to resolve your problem.

If the number at the top of the BBB report doesn't get you past basic customer service, look at the bottom of the report for additional company numbers. Sometimes for hard-to-find headquarters, I've had luck simply calling the BBB's list of related 800-numbers until I find someone willing to give me a number for a company's headquarters.

Reports are available through the BBB's Web site at www.bbb.org or by calling your local BBB.

Another reliable source for finding the toll-free customer service numbers of very large companies is the government-published "Consumer Action Handbook." The back of the book, which is filled with consumer tips, carries corporate customer service contacts for dozens of companies and for consumer protection agencies.

You can order a copy at 1-888-878-3256 or www.consumer action.gov/.

If you're looking for a larger company and can't find a customer service number that gets you to a person, try doing an Internet search for the company's name and the phrase "phone number." Many disgruntled customers have posted phone numbers and hard-won advice on getting to humans.

Alternatively, if you go to a company's Web site and look at the "About Us" or "Company Information" link, you can sometimes find a number for investors. Employees always seem to answer that line in a hurry, and they're often willing to give you a customer service supervisor's number just to make you go away.

If you get stuck in telephone purgatory, the best all-purpose fallbacks are to repeatedly press either 0 or `#', or to say "agent," or mumble at voice prompts.

Alternatively, gethuman.com suggests you push the numbers for billing or for a Spanish-language line, because both tend to be answered more rapidly than the standard customer service line.

Rankin said she suspects companies that try to cut costs by parking customers in phone purgatory ultimately lose more than they save.

"They want you to use their methods for getting the help they want to give which really isn't customer service," she said. "What they're really doing is frustrating customers."

When you do get a representative, Rankin said, ask right away for the rep's name, employee number and a number to call him or her back directly. Sometimes you'll get it.

And, Rankin says, if you get a foreign representative who doesn't understand what you need, ask for a supervisor. Managers are often based in the United States.

Finally, a last word of warning about Internet-based businesses. Unless you're dealing with a very well-known company, steer clear of Web sites that don't list street addresses or phone numbers.

Anyone can create a convincing Web site but that doesn't mean there's a legitimate company behind it. You can head off a lot of frustration by checking the company's report with the BBB first.

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CUSTOMER SERVICE NUMBERS

Here, thanks to gethuman. com, are a few customer service numbers that are either hard to find or that make it hard to speak to a person. (Nearly 400 are listed on the site.):

AAA Emergency Road Service, 1-800-222-4357 (Press 0 repeatedly after initial introduction.)

Amazon, 1-800-201-7575. (Don't press or say anything.)

Dell, 1-800-999-3355. (Press 0 repeatedly.)

eBay, 1-800-322-9266 (press 00 -- I had to do this twice) or 1-888-749-3229.

eTrade, 1-800-786-2575 (Press `#' symbol four times.)

FirstEnergy, 1-800-633-4766. (Say "representative" repeatedly.)

Medicare, 1-800-633-4227 (Say "agent." )

PayPal, 1-888-221-1161.

RCA /Thompson Electronics, 1-877-794-7977. (Press 2.)

Sears Credit Card, 1-800- 917-7700. (Press 0000000; press 0 at subsequent prompts.)

Postal Service, 1-800-275-8777 (Press 5 4 2 2 at each prompt.)

Western Union, 1-800-325- 6000 (Press `*' sign once and `#' sign twice.)

May 11, 2006

(Sheryl Harris is a reporter for The Plain Dealer of Cleveland. She can be contacted at sherylharris@plaind.com)

http://www.newhousenews.com/archive/harris051106.html

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