Talking To Robots

Technology can be a great thing.  For example, having HDTV is certainly better than watching a TV with rabbit-ear antennas.  High speed internet is definitely better than 14.4 dial-up internet.  For the most part, it makes our life easier and more enjoyable.   Unfortunately, not all technology is positive- especially when it comes to the telephone.

If there is one thing in life that drives me absolutely crazy, it is talking with robots on the telephone.  It is impossible to avoid it.  It was bad enough in the days when people called you at dinner time with some stupid offer, but at least you got the satisfaction of hanging up on them.  With these robots calling, you aren’t even sure if they know you hung up.  They just keep going on and on with their recording.    However, the human telemarketers were equally as annoying – so I’m not going to count this one against technology.  Technology didn’t make telemarketers worse, it just made them different.

The part I can’t stand is when I am trying to call a company and have to talk to a robot- or an “interactive voice prompt system” or whatever they call it.  In the early days of these systems, you could just hit ZERO a couple of times and it would route you through to a human.  Unfortunately, they’ve wised up to that technique and not you generally just get an “I’m sorry, I didn’t understand that entry.”  It drives me absolutely bananas.

My theory is you should have a choice.  They should warn you that there is a longer wait time for the humans, but it is an option.  Hit 1 to wait for a human or hit 2 to use our automated system.  Is that so difficult.  Honestly, if we could get this system fixed, I could live with $4/gallon gas.  I really could.  From there, all we would need to fix is the fact that you have to enter your account number to get to an agent, only to have the person ask you for your account number.  That one still baffles me.