If you are sick of phone queues...please press 1

[Mick]

I'm sure everyone has heard those annoying phone menus you get when you ring a company these days.... If you want service please press 1...etc

I called up the Tech support number for Norton Internet security because I am having problems with the 2005 version I installed recently. After getting the usual menus, press 1... press 4...etc..I then had the usual awful music on hold which is interrupted regularly by the message...your call is important to us, please hold....

What really shocked me was after staying on hold for about 30 mins, it finally started ringing and I thought I had got through to a real person. But what I got was another recorded message...."Our tech support lines are currently busy, please try again later"....and then I was cut off.

Is this a new thing or has anyone else had an experience like this?

[yarnellcg17]

Oh..on those..yeah same thing here in the US..and then alot of times ya wait maybe 90 mins.. then :eek: they cut you off.. :mad:

I'd like to just give em a piece of my mind..well wait ..I do do that :angel2:

[Mick]

90 minutes!! ouch!! I thought 30 was bad but I guess like a lot of things we seem to be following American ways. I am curious how you give them a piece of your mind if you can't get through to a real person.

[yarnellcg17]

Oh I usually wait for the live one to show up eventually :D

Then raise cane about what they did wrong on my billing :angel2:

[JsWoman]

90 minutes waiting to get on the phone with a real person... My hubby has that issue with night and weekend dispatch, as he is a truck driver. He tries to know what he's doing during the day, and hopefully be still doing it at the end of the day, so he doesn't have to try to talk to them. He has waited on the phone for upwards toward an hour, but I don't know about an hour and a half.

[yarnellcg17]

It's the crazy price we pay for all this so called user menu friendly systems..which I think the live person was so much better at reaching..

Another annoying queues that has recently started is the ones telemarketers now use..they call you..and then when you say hello..you wait..due to a pause before they say hello back to you.. :angry:

[Mick]

I've heard a good way to get a quick response is to select the option that you want to pay your bill/account or start a new account with them. For some reason you get though to a person a lot quicker that other options like enquiries or complaints... I wonder why? :rolleyes:

[Arkacia]

I've noticed with Telstra (Australia's leading telephone company for non-Aussies) you get through to sales a lot quicker than accounts. A couple of times I've given up waiting on the accounts number, hung up and rang sales instead. Amazing how quick they answered the phone :D.

[yarnellcg17]

Yeah..that is true..on getting thru quicker to em if ya have a bill to pay..vs having any complaint ya may have with billing or service...

[Shaggy]

I always go through this auto message stuff, but i have never waited that long and then got cut off Mick. Ouch!

[Freakums]

Hows this: 6 hours.
AVERAGE aliant online consumer complaint/helpline wait.
its actually a statistic that as companies grow bigger, the comsumer complaint centers grow smaller.
Think about that.
Very few excpetions.
this is, of course, assuming, the transition from company to corporation.

and a better note:
Hi guys! Not dead!
:D

[yarnellcg17]

Hello Freakums
Glad to see that you are still alive and kicking :D
Yeah..with all this hi techory we have..it boggles the mind how some of the human aspect of customer/consumer relations has slipped us these days :rolleyes: