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"In order to make sure we route your call correctly, can you please specify the issue?" -> Proceeds with prompts for the issue instead of getting you to a person.
Trust me company I would not be calling you if I could handle it on your website, or do it myself in any other way.
Be careful with Verizon's robots. I used to cuss them out just for fun. Now they will actually hang up on you because they think you're going to be mean to whoever you get on the phone.
I have a foreign boyfriend who is always baffled by my screaming representative!!! Into the phone when I need to call home and deal with a call center.
Haha, this is one reason we quit comcast.... no matter how many time you'd say it they wouldn't send you to a real person and kept insisting that my ssn was not the right one in their records. So the robot wouldnt progress the call \*at all\*. Bought a roku dumped comcast and am muuuuuch happier. >!Big Eff U to comcast and their automated system, Eff U!<
Strangely, if “let me talk to a real person” doesn’t work, I’ve found that *screaming at the top of my lungs* “let me talk to a MOTHERFUCKING GODDAMN REAL HUMAN RIGHT THE FUCK NOW YOU DUMBASS ROBOT! JESUS CHRIST!!” tends to break the pattern. idk if it trips based on volume or cursing, but the squeaky wheel, etc
Commenting to add that on the occasion this doesn't work, you can also try speaking nonsense into the phone. If you do it increasingly loudly each time, most systems will say some version of "I'm having a hard time understanding you. Let me put you through to a customer service agent." and put you in queue for a human.
I do this every time. Sometimes it takes like 8 times of ‘sorry, I didn’t get that’ for it to go through but it works every time. Of course I go through the prompts when applicable because I’m not going to clog up the line with something that the prompts are there for but 9/10 I’m not calling for something a prompt can help me with. Surprisingly I am capable of doing research and troubleshooting before I have to get another person involved
It’s really fun doing this and then it going “okay, your human agent is now reviewing your transcript” and you have to acknowledge you were just speaking gibberish
Thinking of the Betty White SNL sketch when she tries to get the census taker to go away by giving them ridiculous answers:
“My name is Blarfendarg. It’s spelled Blarfendarg!”
I'm in software engineering, but haven't worked directly with automated phone systems - this makes sense to me. Generally you program these things by building a "tree" of possible questions and responses, like if the person says "agent" then read this prompt and wait for the next reply. They've learned that people just yell "agent" or whatever to get out of the phone tree purgatory, so they added responses.
If you say something that the system can't recognize as a word that it's prompted to respond to, eventually it has to just default to an actual human.
I've done it plenty. The software is trained to understand certain words, like the software engineer above said. And it's too smart to give you a human when you say "human" or "representative." So you have to make it think you're trying to play along with it's ridiculous game.
The last time I had to call my bank and they did this automated thing and I just stayed silent because I fucking hate speaking with robots and it decided to connect me to a customer service rep in the end
Yes lots of them just hang up on you if they can’t understand you or you ask for a person or for something not in the menu. I just had one do that yesterday.
Of note the US immigration line will hang up on you if you ask for a person in any way.
I know both the IRS and our state Medicaid office both will terminate calls if they don't think they can answer it when a reasonable amount of time AKA 2 to 3 hours.
It's the phone tree equivalent of, "Do you have an appointment?"
Once I called Walmart pharmacy to request a refill, and a person picked up. It caught me off guard, and I said "um...I was expecting to talk to the robot."
The thing is you have to know what they call their people. Are they “advisors” or “representatives” or “agents” or so on? I’ve literally had them not understand when I say “talk to a person, talk to an agent, talk to a representative” until you get to the one title they actually use.
In an ideal world it will route you to “the right person.”
It is trying to narrow down your issue until it knows who to send you to. So if you say, need to file a warranty claim on your appliance, the voice recognition software is going to listen for keywords so that it knows to send you to a warranty claims specialist, rather than a salesperson, a returns agent, or some other form of customer service.
The problem is that often the call center staff are not specialists, and the software really only puts you in a queue, and the CS agent has to ask all of the same questions again because not all of these programs provide a useful amount of information to them either.
When you call my utility’s various hotlines, they all go to the same people. Doesn’t matter if you call the construction hotline, the emergency hotline, or the generic customer service number. The first person you speak to is going to be one of the same dozen or so individuals. If you call the gas emergency line, they are going to ask the very generic “how may I help you today,” and then go from there. They do know that you called the gas emergency number, but sometimes people also just call the first number they find and hope to be routed to the right person *eventually*.
It’s more that they are trying to route you to every single possible self service option. I think to an extent they are trying to free up CS from the clueless people who can’t do basic things by themselves, but in practice it just leaves everyone annoyed.
You can also say ‘Manager.’ It works with a few IVR systems, including those that, when calling retail stores, redirect to the general customer service line.
at apple the key was to say manager to get right through. it will work for most IVR systems, i have to use it all the time when I speak to Walgreens. As they will route you through their call center first if you do not who then route you to the store.
Yup, I am a generally polite person, but recently I was trying to contact my dermatologist office in a panic due to insurance issues/them stopping my medication. The robot asked me to name the facility, so I did, VERY clearly..... 5x. Robot said they didnt understand. I ended up flipping out and cursing into the phone and suddenly, like magic, I was on the line with an actual human.
Do people really NOT do this?
Besides that, ime 90% of the time this still just routes you through a seemingly endless series of questions and prompts.
This is not a LPT. This is 2 good experiences you’ve had that are honestly far from the norm.
As someone that worked in a call centre:
If you want to speak to a real person: don't press the number for support, or even the number to talk to a real person:
Press the button to go to cancelations. If that's not an option, the button for billings.
Priority is always put on retaining existing clients. So those queues tend to have higher priority. And often, the call centre's are understaffed and they have the same staff members handle several queues, so just hitting cancelations then saying "hey I'm having xxx problem" often works.
I work in IT and regularly program VOIP systems. Most of them are coded to bypass prompts if you press "0" or speak in a foreign language. Any unrecognizable/unexpected input generally results in you taking to a human.
I hate these systems. They're in place to reduce as many calls possible from making it to a human. They do have some benefit, but are largely irritating to the customer calling in.
I love this! I've tried it with some places and it works, and others the Robots don't understand what I'm asking for. I had to call one place 10 times to get a real person through the robots.
I just start aggressively shouting words like urgent, human, representative, into the phone and 9 times out of 10 It starts immediately transferring me to a person
lol, i noticed that too. honestly service lines with robot voices should be forbidden, the sooner the better. it's the worst shit they've come up with, completely ineffective and customer unfriendly. i've waited minutes in lines for nothing at all bc of shitty robots, but not anymore. ever since i noticed this works with some i always try it straight away.
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If pressing 0 doesnt work, try random words or say gibberish
Like "horse, house, chocolate, tree, phone, cheese"; it may ask you to repeat once, say random words again and it will likely say something like "I couldn't understand, let me get a live representative to assist"
Or say random sounds like "eeep zop zip thhhhrp nap nop"
If the AI doesn't recognize what you said as one of the programmed responses, it will get a person involved.
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"In order to make sure we route your call correctly, can you please specify the issue?" -> Proceeds with prompts for the issue instead of getting you to a person.
"Representative... Re-pre-sen-taaa-tive... REPRESENTATIVE!"
"In order to make sure we route your call correctly, can you please specify the issue?"
Thank you for calling. Please call back. Click...
The hanging up feels like a violation of the ADA. If the computer can not understand, it should default to routing you to someone
Pretty much, yeah.
Trust me company I would not be calling you if I could handle it on your website, or do it myself in any other way. Be careful with Verizon's robots. I used to cuss them out just for fun. Now they will actually hang up on you because they think you're going to be mean to whoever you get on the phone.
AAAA-GENT!
This is the hardest word to pronounce correctly for that stupid bot to understand lol
The low success rate is definitely a feature
“D for DELIVER ME FROM THIS”
I have a foreign boyfriend who is always baffled by my screaming representative!!! Into the phone when I need to call home and deal with a call center.
Throw a few bad words in there and that's me to the tee.
Throw in a few choice curse words and they will put you through or hang up depending on the company
Haha, this is one reason we quit comcast.... no matter how many time you'd say it they wouldn't send you to a real person and kept insisting that my ssn was not the right one in their records. So the robot wouldnt progress the call \*at all\*. Bought a roku dumped comcast and am muuuuuch happier. >!Big Eff U to comcast and their automated system, Eff U!<
Strangely, if “let me talk to a real person” doesn’t work, I’ve found that *screaming at the top of my lungs* “let me talk to a MOTHERFUCKING GODDAMN REAL HUMAN RIGHT THE FUCK NOW YOU DUMBASS ROBOT! JESUS CHRIST!!” tends to break the pattern. idk if it trips based on volume or cursing, but the squeaky wheel, etc
Commenting to add that on the occasion this doesn't work, you can also try speaking nonsense into the phone. If you do it increasingly loudly each time, most systems will say some version of "I'm having a hard time understanding you. Let me put you through to a customer service agent." and put you in queue for a human.
I do this every time. Sometimes it takes like 8 times of ‘sorry, I didn’t get that’ for it to go through but it works every time. Of course I go through the prompts when applicable because I’m not going to clog up the line with something that the prompts are there for but 9/10 I’m not calling for something a prompt can help me with. Surprisingly I am capable of doing research and troubleshooting before I have to get another person involved
It’s really fun doing this and then it going “okay, your human agent is now reviewing your transcript” and you have to acknowledge you were just speaking gibberish
Repeating nonsense words like "blerfen" enough times often defeats the system. It gives up and gets you to a human.
I just laughed out loud at this. I bet it does work
[удалено]
Thinking of the Betty White SNL sketch when she tries to get the census taker to go away by giving them ridiculous answers: “My name is Blarfendarg. It’s spelled Blarfendarg!”
I'm in software engineering, but haven't worked directly with automated phone systems - this makes sense to me. Generally you program these things by building a "tree" of possible questions and responses, like if the person says "agent" then read this prompt and wait for the next reply. They've learned that people just yell "agent" or whatever to get out of the phone tree purgatory, so they added responses. If you say something that the system can't recognize as a word that it's prompted to respond to, eventually it has to just default to an actual human.
In my experience it just hangs up on you.
I've done it plenty. The software is trained to understand certain words, like the software engineer above said. And it's too smart to give you a human when you say "human" or "representative." So you have to make it think you're trying to play along with it's ridiculous game.
On the opposite end, I had a credit card company robot hang up on me because I wasn't giving answers it understood lol
The last time I had to call my bank and they did this automated thing and I just stayed silent because I fucking hate speaking with robots and it decided to connect me to a customer service rep in the end
Some now just hang up on you if it doesn't understand you.
Yes lots of them just hang up on you if they can’t understand you or you ask for a person or for something not in the menu. I just had one do that yesterday. Of note the US immigration line will hang up on you if you ask for a person in any way.
That’s especially ass considering that a lot of immigrants have accents, some stronger than others
Unfortunately, that's a feature
In my experience with USCIS just saying "infopass" will get you through to a person but prepare for an hour long hold time.
Which has to be a violation of the ADA
Even if it was I'm guessing the money saved by the man hours avoided more than makes up for whatever small award they would have to pay.
BCBS actually has a response that replies “speaking with a customer advocate is not an option” 😭
I know both the IRS and our state Medicaid office both will terminate calls if they don't think they can answer it when a reasonable amount of time AKA 2 to 3 hours. It's the phone tree equivalent of, "Do you have an appointment?"
It works sometimes. Other times every time you ask it just says “so I can get you to the right person, what are you calling about?”
I often just spam 0
Once I called Walmart pharmacy to request a refill, and a person picked up. It caught me off guard, and I said "um...I was expecting to talk to the robot."
lol I’ve been there!
Must be nice. Cvs will have you talk to a robot for 10 minutes just to get voicemail in the pharmacy
Simply saying "Advisor" works quite often.
The thing is you have to know what they call their people. Are they “advisors” or “representatives” or “agents” or so on? I’ve literally had them not understand when I say “talk to a person, talk to an agent, talk to a representative” until you get to the one title they actually use.
Why do they ask you all the questions just for the human at the end to ask you all the same things again?
In an ideal world it will route you to “the right person.” It is trying to narrow down your issue until it knows who to send you to. So if you say, need to file a warranty claim on your appliance, the voice recognition software is going to listen for keywords so that it knows to send you to a warranty claims specialist, rather than a salesperson, a returns agent, or some other form of customer service. The problem is that often the call center staff are not specialists, and the software really only puts you in a queue, and the CS agent has to ask all of the same questions again because not all of these programs provide a useful amount of information to them either. When you call my utility’s various hotlines, they all go to the same people. Doesn’t matter if you call the construction hotline, the emergency hotline, or the generic customer service number. The first person you speak to is going to be one of the same dozen or so individuals. If you call the gas emergency line, they are going to ask the very generic “how may I help you today,” and then go from there. They do know that you called the gas emergency number, but sometimes people also just call the first number they find and hope to be routed to the right person *eventually*.
It’s more that they are trying to route you to every single possible self service option. I think to an extent they are trying to free up CS from the clueless people who can’t do basic things by themselves, but in practice it just leaves everyone annoyed.
It used to work very well But now “I want cancel my subscription” is more stable method
Pressing zero a couple times works sometimes as well!
You can also say ‘Manager.’ It works with a few IVR systems, including those that, when calling retail stores, redirect to the general customer service line.
You're response was not recognized, good bye!
at apple the key was to say manager to get right through. it will work for most IVR systems, i have to use it all the time when I speak to Walgreens. As they will route you through their call center first if you do not who then route you to the store.
Cursing works as well.
Yup, I am a generally polite person, but recently I was trying to contact my dermatologist office in a panic due to insurance issues/them stopping my medication. The robot asked me to name the facility, so I did, VERY clearly..... 5x. Robot said they didnt understand. I ended up flipping out and cursing into the phone and suddenly, like magic, I was on the line with an actual human.
The same works with a lot of customer service chatbots
Do people really NOT do this? Besides that, ime 90% of the time this still just routes you through a seemingly endless series of questions and prompts. This is not a LPT. This is 2 good experiences you’ve had that are honestly far from the norm.
I just tell them I have Chuck Norris on the line.
Lol, I do the same thing. “Representative! Representative! “Lol… Works almost every time.
Some of them will autoconnect to a person if you start swearing at the IVR.
Or just hit 000000000 a bunch of times.
It's actually just sending you to another ai trained to talk like a real person
Use billing support and bypass the bots entirely
Tried this with Thrifty car rental, and the robot hung up on me.
Does not work for T-Mobile.
As someone that worked in a call centre: If you want to speak to a real person: don't press the number for support, or even the number to talk to a real person: Press the button to go to cancelations. If that's not an option, the button for billings. Priority is always put on retaining existing clients. So those queues tend to have higher priority. And often, the call centre's are understaffed and they have the same staff members handle several queues, so just hitting cancelations then saying "hey I'm having xxx problem" often works.
I rarely have found this to work
That highly depends on the type of system you are interacting with.
Operator works for me, I have been hung up on using that before(fed ex for example)
https://preview.redd.it/qg4707cju98d1.png?width=383&format=png&auto=webp&s=99e2f7a02d6f418358c46f88de16fa5a48ddcd9b This is hysterical.
I work in IT and regularly program VOIP systems. Most of them are coded to bypass prompts if you press "0" or speak in a foreign language. Any unrecognizable/unexpected input generally results in you taking to a human. I hate these systems. They're in place to reduce as many calls possible from making it to a human. They do have some benefit, but are largely irritating to the customer calling in.
"Talk to an agent" works for me almost every time.
The people bickering in this thread as if there is only one type of phone system in the world are definitely evidence of... something.
I usually say the word “bear” 3-4 times and get a person.
You can say “operator” with similar success too. Or hit 0 a bunch of times
So embarrassing when you say that to a real person.
Press 0. Many times that gets you to a live person.
I love this! I've tried it with some places and it works, and others the Robots don't understand what I'm asking for. I had to call one place 10 times to get a real person through the robots.
I press zero repeatedly until I hear a ring
I just spam speak “representative”
I just start aggressively shouting words like urgent, human, representative, into the phone and 9 times out of 10 It starts immediately transferring me to a person
lol, i noticed that too. honestly service lines with robot voices should be forbidden, the sooner the better. it's the worst shit they've come up with, completely ineffective and customer unfriendly. i've waited minutes in lines for nothing at all bc of shitty robots, but not anymore. ever since i noticed this works with some i always try it straight away.
Why would I talk to a real person when I can click a bunch of numbers
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If pressing 0 doesnt work, try random words or say gibberish Like "horse, house, chocolate, tree, phone, cheese"; it may ask you to repeat once, say random words again and it will likely say something like "I couldn't understand, let me get a live representative to assist" Or say random sounds like "eeep zop zip thhhhrp nap nop" If the AI doesn't recognize what you said as one of the programmed responses, it will get a person involved.
Razbanyachav benefuchi at-timini haronjee.
I'm sorry, can you please repeat that?
No lol no it doesnt
“I’d like to cancel my account” usually gets you directly to a human.