Phone Tree

This guest post from Lenny Mcknight

When was the last time that you spent thirty minutes on the phone holding and trying to work your way through a phone tree? Today everyone has them. Some are worse than others. They phone trees that are the worst are the ones that cut you off, don’t call you back, and don’t have an option where you can speak to an operator. I was surprised to hear a phone tree when I called the gas station to track down my lost credit card. I even think I would pay an extra dollar a month to be connected to a live person when I call somewhere than having to navigate an impossible automated system. Luckily, for some of the businesses that I call often, I have memorized the navigation choices and am able to cut at least five minutes out of my wait time. I did have a good experience when I called about a television package . direct tv customer service was much more streamlined than the natural gas company that put me on hold for forty-five minutes even after I had been cut off twice! Maybe I should start billing these places for my time!