How to Get a Human on the Phone

What do you think about while you're on hold waiting for customer service or tech support or trying to follow vocal instructions that will take you to the appropriate extension? Do you think about all the productive and pleasurable things you could be doing instead of listening to elevator music or self-serving company ads? Do you calculate how much money you're losing while you endure this nightmare? Or do you think black murderous thoughts along the lines of, "God bestowed the precious gift of life upon me and I'm pissing it away listening to a canned message listing my f*****g options?"

Wait - you have one one more choice, and this one may have you murmuring a blessing. It's called Get Human, and it's one of those Why Didn't I Think of That? websites.

Its creators have aggregated a list of phone numbers of big corporations (1356 of them at this writing) and tips, shortcuts and pathways to reach flesh and blood humans at such frequently sought destinations as technical support and customer service. The site even tells you how long the average wait is, so you can perform some other tasks while waiting to be connected. Get Human also rates the services and provides customer reviews (which, it will come as no surprise, are mostly anonymous for poorly rated companies).

Here's an example of a voicemail system rated Excellent. Guess who it belongs to?

Phone number 800-201-7575
Steps to reach a person - Dont press or say anything.
Available hours: 24 hours, 7 days
Average wait: 1 minute
Average user rating: 4.6 out of 5: Excellent
Communication rating: 4.4 out of 5: Good
Most recent reviews:
"excellent service, sent a replacement order immediately..." -atomicda..., 1 mo ago
"Got me started on how to deal with possible incorrect..." -JoeFH73, 2 mos ago
"great service, but took two tries to connect " -michael p..., 2 mos ago

The answer? Amazon.com. Now for one that didn't fare as well:

Chase Home Finance
Phone number: 800-848-9136.
How many steps to reach a person? At the prompt, press 4; then press 1; then press 1 again.
Available hours? 24 hours, 7 days
Average wait? 29 mins
Average user rating? 2.3 out of 5: Poor
communication rating 2.2 out of 5: Poor

Why the poor ratings? Customers say...
"automative service didn't work, could not reach ..." -Anonymous, 1 mo ago
"PLEASE hire people who are native English speakers..." -Anonymous, 2 mos ago
"the wait time was short, the lady spoke ok english..." -chris, 2 mos ago
"Can't get to a human PERIOD" -EstateEx..., 2 mos ago

Aside from providing invaluable information, Get Human is entertaining reading. So, turn ye away from your wrath. Next time you need to speak to a human being at a big company, visit Get Human and just follow the prompts.

Richard Curtis