Monday, September 04, 2006

Called 411 lately?

This has been going on for a while. And then it wasn't, and now it is again and I am freaking irritated.

When you call 411 in Connecticut . . . you get this lovely autobot asking you first for the city (and/or state) and then the number you are calling for. Even if you are speaking the King's English, the autobot never recognizes whatever you have to say. It makes you repeat it. And then, to add insult to injury, usually the next question is the autobot repeating what she thinks you said, "You said, "Butthead," is that right?" No, damn it, it's not right. And it's never right.

When I actually got a humanoid last time I was informed that this whole process is intended to help speed up gettinig information on 411. Are they kidding? As if they are in the efficiency business anyway. The only business they are in is making me stop and repeat something it would take a human less time to figure out. I'm trying to figure out how many actual living, breathing people they got to fire now that they have this automated system. When are these companies going to learn that this stuff does not work. I know I am not the only one complaining about it. Because when I asked my questions about this new system (they tried it for months, got rid of it for a little while and back it came), they kind of giggled and reported that they have had a lot of complaints about it. She actually giggled.

I can't imagine working for the phone company as part of information is a great job. I'm sure people are rude all day long to them. What irriates me is that they slip this system in on us and now we are supposed to just go along. Activism now! Call SBC/ATT whatever the hell their new name is and tell them to knock it off! Tell them you've had enough too! I just want to speak to a human!

2 comments:

J. Denae said...

Eleni-
My husband works for one of the 411 companies and it's a "fuster-cluck" all the way around... His company specializes in the 411 for cell phone companies and all THEY care about is getting people on and off the phone quickly (more calls = more money). In general, when you call any 411 YOU are not the customer that the company cares about, your phone service is the customer that they care about and your phone service is all about making money on the call. The only thing we can really do is stop wasting our $3-5 and not call 411!!

Anonymous said...

Hey!! The autobots are the good guys!! Maybe the evil robot voice on 411 is a decepticon?

(Sorry, totally nerdy, but I couldn't resist!)