Automated Phone Operators

Why are they so annoying? Would they be less annoying with actual robot voices? Probably not.

The reason they are so annoying could be that they have a trillion menus to go through and when you go through them all you still don’t have your question answered. Sometimes after the fifth or six sub menu they transfer you to a real person, if you’re lucky enough. If you’re luckier yet, your human operator may say words that are distinguishable. But, you may be a pushing your luck if English is their first language.

Let’s run through a typical conversation with an automated phone operator.

“Hello, welcome to blah, blah, blah, press one to do something that you don’t need, press two, if you want to listen to me talk more, press three if you would like me to just continue to talk, press star if you would like me to repeat these options, press pound if you need assistance with these options.”

So, me being a smart person, I say nothing, which on most of these stupid things get you straight to a person. However, this particular call does not understand the, “I say nothing, you give me human” procedure. Julie, which is the name of the operator for this specific call, continues to rattle off the same exact options for me. THANKS JULIE! What do you want to do? Hang up? Yes, that’s the first thing that came to my mind, but what happens when you hang up, nothing, they’ve won.

And now you’re out three hours.

Is this the beginning of a robot revolution? The answer is obvious. Terminator had it right all the time, Skynet is here.

Robinson Murphy