What's the most annoying part about automated on-hold systems?

[Montauk6]

[Shell Beau]

1. The worst is when THEY call YOU and when you

answer the phone it says "please hold for a very important call". Yeah right, don't call me and put me on hold.

[Montauk6]

2. Or that really obvious "HELLO..."

[ucmike]

3. "for english press 1"

"to speak to customer service press 1"
"please hold while we connect you to one of our associates"
silence
silence
click
dialtone.

[Montauk6]

8. That is the worst!

It's like following someone's directions to the restroom and you end up in the alley.

[tonkatoy57]

4. Voice Activated Directories

"Please say the name of the person you're trying to reach"

John Smith

"Did you say, Sanjay Sravstrom?"

Arrrgh

[Texasgal]

5. HA! HA!

Yeah.... I've had that happen to me too!!! :rofl:

BTW- Welcome to DU! :hi:

[tonkatoy57]

6. Thanks for the welcome

I hate voice activated directories.

I'd love to meet the sales staff for the company that sells them. They must be the most awesome sales people in the entire world. I've never encountered a system that actually works and I'm sure they must be quite expensive.

I read a few months ago that the city government of, I believe, Dallas had purchased a voice activated system and had to replace it because it just couldn't deal with southern accents. Hah.

[newyawker99]

7. The bland music.

:puke:

[MarsThe Cat]

9. threads about them on message boards.

nt

[Montauk6]

10. Welcome to DU, anyway.

[Heidi]

11. The lies they tell.

If they really cared about my call, they'd pay a real person wages and benefits to answer my very important call. :shrug:

[Ivan Sputnik]

12. When they give you a list of "options"

and none of them fits your problem -- and none of them includes talking to a human.

[underpants]

14. Oprah says to just hit 0

I knew that before she said it and totally agree.

Also, when paying at a grocery store as long as you don't have anything to weight you can pass up the check out lines and go right up to the customer service counter (if there aren't 48 people there playing the lottery).

[Ivan Sputnik]

15. I tried that

Hitting zero. It works with most voicemail systems. Recently, though, I got a canned message that said "that is not a supported option."

[underpants]

16. I have on occassion ran into that

but for the most part it gets me to a human and then I just let the ;-) *charm* :o take over.

[Sabriel]

13. The feeling that someone's listening to my conversation

While I'm holding, they're spying on me, finding out that I yell at my children, complain about the government, and eat things that I've dropped on the floor.