How To Speak To A Corporate Human Not A Robot

Mondo

Mondo

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One of my pet peeves is calling a corporation with an issue and not being able to speak to a person without punching many buttons and being put in a queue forever. I ran across the site below and it worked for a call to Bank of America. Type in the company name and several options pop up. Perhaps it will save you some frustration.

gethuman.com

Greg
 
Nashcat said:
I just keep pushing buttons that aren’t in the menu. After 4 or 5, the AI gives up.

John
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Sometimes that works. And sometimes I've tried that and I just get hung up on. Guarantee that 99% that have to call back will be furious when they finally reach a warm body. I pity those ppl...some.
 
Mondo said:
One of my pet peeves is calling a corporation with an issue and not being able to speak to a person without punching many buttons and being put in a queue forever. I ran across the site below and it worked for a call to Bank of America. Type in the company name and several options pop up. Perhaps it will save you some frustration.

gethuman.com

Greg
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Put a bad review on Yelp and F/B and you will see how fast they will contact you. Been there done that. :thumb:
 
jdmccright said:
Sometimes that works. And sometimes I've tried that and I just get hung up on.
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Yeah the phone tree is Corporate's tool to avoid talking to a customer. In fact many companies don't even provide phone numbers. Some do provide an option to request a phone call. With others it's just not an option. I've run in to several that don't have an email address. Some have had an on-site email form that requires providing more info than needed for a simple email question. I've seen a few that only have FAQs.

I'm assuming that if you actually make a purchase from sites like these you'll get some support contact info. I just wouldn't bet on it.

All that's a pain because so many times the Options in the tree or FAQ just don't address the question(s) I have that could more often than not be solved with a 2min phone call.

There's also outsourcing calls to off-shore sources. Sometimes that works well. Sometimes not.

On occasion saying Human! (with or without a Ferengi accent) or Agent! would get me one even though it wasn't offered as an option.

Either gethuman or some similar resource has been around for quite a while. Corporate just ups its own game.

Then there are Captchas. A pox upon those that use the 'Click all the squares with cars...' etc.
 
jdmccright said:
I feel like I'm 4 years old when trying to find the squares with motorcycles in them...and somehow failing. Over, and over.
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And I hate those persisting "chat bot" popups on store sites...
"how can I help you?"... by staying closed dammit... :cautious:
Only once one actually functioned by answering with a shipment date* after entering my order/transaction number (* which was nowhere else to be found...)
 
SMSW said:
Don't worry, in a year or two AI will be able to identify whatever captcha wants.
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Actually, in a year or two AI will know there is an issue you might be concerned about, will understand this potential issue better than you might, and will then proactively implement a solution resolving this potential issue before you are even consciously aware of it.
 
Opposite story. In August 2025 I got my first set of hearing aids. Recently I have been having problems with one of them so I called their support line instead of using the chat bot for support. I ended up going thru two menus with two options each and had a human on the other end in minutes. I was amazed at the service a human can offer without getting my blood pressure thru the roof going thru menus and chat bots. Oh yea as of now my issue is resolved.

But I must say that this is a first in a long time.
 
Not to hijack this thread, but yesterday I called my local pharmacy to get a renewal on a prescription. The new chat bot was actually pretty good. Yes, it was a scripted conversation, but there were a number of options that worked surprisingly well. The AI bot recognized my phone number, asked for my birth date, responded with my name, asked me what I wanted, I replied 'renew prescription' it checked to see if any were eligible and asked me which one I wanted. I replied and it said it would be ready later that day. I was impressed. No accent, no garbled language, it did not speak too quickly, and it seemed to understand me reasonably well. Since I talk on the phone thru my hearing aids, this was a vast improvement over talking to someone in East Pakistan with a Southern Czech accent.
 
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