Anorak

Anorak News | Finding Your Centre

Finding Your Centre

by | 5th, December 2005

‘FOR the last week or more your writer’s head has been poisoned by the sound of piped music.

‘You wait for ages then two come along at once’

”We know not from what Satanist BT acquired the music it plays its customers put on hold, only that if the tune were blasted into the Iraqi deserts, the insurgents would surely surrender within moments. Or else get increasingly irate, antagonised by the soft chirping of Beelzebub’s theme music interspersed with reminders that “Your call is important to us”.

But no more. The Mail says there are ways to beat BT and its ilk. And in “How to beat the call centre ordeal” we learn how.

No, don’t march up to the firm’s head office in person and demand to see the chief executive or else. Rather, get your hands on a so-called “cheat kit”.

Paul English, an American consumer activist, has discovered cheats for phone systems operated by some of the world’s corporations.

“Humans want human contact,” says the Bostonian. “I just got increasingly frustrated about what companies are putting us though as consumers.”

So all hail to Mr English’s Interactive Voice Response Cheat Sheet. In “THE ANSWER”, the Sun hears English tell callers to Goldfish to press 0 # quickly three times when asked to key in details of their account.

For MBNA customers, the trick is to press * around ten times, pause then press 0. For DHL, press nothing. The machines will think you don’t have a touch tone phone and put you through.

This is just great. But we voice our own words of caution. Being put through to a human is not all it’s cracked up to be.

Especially when you ask to speak with the supervisor and are put on hold…’



Posted: 5th, December 2005 | In: Tabloids Comment | TrackBack | Permalink