IVR is that miserable system you get connected to when you call a large company or organization such as your telephone company, power company, wireless provider, cable operator, local government offices etc. or for that matter even the telephone operator!

These systems are starting to drive me crazy and I get the feeling I am not alone! It’s obvious that companies use these systems to save time and money but whatever happened to personalized customer service? I guess it got out sourced to India where most of these calls seem to be answered now.

Clearly one of mankind’s worst inventions, the system asks or should I say, prompts you to press number one for billing, two to hear this message in another language, three to connect to technical support and so on. My reason for calling never seems to be on their list. And speaking of the list, it usually consists of about eight choices. By the time they get to number eight, I have usually forgotten what the other choices were and either have to listen to the entire list again or frantically begin hitting the “0” key in hopes that a human will come on the line and rescue me.

If you are lucky enough to actually hear a choice that vaguely resembles the reason for your call, you press the appropriate key and begin to wait and wait and wait. You are now on “perma hold”! Then, while you are listening to that awful music on hold, which would be considered an insult to elevator music, you hear a recording that says something like, “Your call is important to us, please continue to hold”. Well if my call were that important, you probably would have answered it by now wouldn’t you?

Then after a 20 minute wait, listening to the same music and the same recording indicating how important your call is, you are finally connected to a service center somewhere in downtown Mumbai, formerly known as Bombay. The service person, who usually has some American sounding name like Chip, (but whose real name contains no vowels) asks how they may be of service. You soon realize that your specific problem is not on the computer screen that good old Chip is looking at, and your quick call for service will undoubtedly turn into a marathon of frustration. It’s not Chip’s fault that’s how he was trained. If the problem isn’t on his computer screen then it doesn’t exist.

Completely frustrated, at this point I usually hang up the phone and quickly call back. Now admit it, how many times have you called back and disguised your voice in case the same person answers the phone? You cal tell me, because I admit that I have done it, especially with directory assistance. Of course when they ask,”is this Mr. Degenstein?” I am immediately horrified, usually turn six different shades of red and hang up, only to call again ten minutes later.

We consumers have wised up over the years and discovered that on some of these systems, if you press either the 0, the star or the pound sign keys, you will be immediately connected to a service person. Unfortunately, many companies have discovered this flaw in their systems and in many cases drop your call. I guess they showed us, thank you very little! If you want to speak to a human then you’ll have to earn it by waiting just like everyone else!

I moved recently and had a problem getting my DSL service hooked up. So what else is new? When I called my internet service provider, I was on hold for at least 25 minutes. What made it all the worse, is that the recording kept telling me that many connection problems can be solved by looking at their internet site. Well if I could connect to the internet in the first place, do you really think I would be waiting on hold for 25 minutes? I wasn’t there to hear the musical offering of the day, that’s for sure.

Many of these companies ask you to input your telephone number or account number for “faster service”. Ever notice that when you connect with a human they ask you for the same information all over again? It’s on their computer screen, why do we have to repeat it again. I know, it must be that they think we need the practice inputting our information on the phone.

Just before the magic moment comes, when you are actually to be connected to a human, you get a recording that goes something like, “This call may be recorded for training or quality assurance purposes”. If these companies were really interested in improving the quality of their service, they would scrap these systems and hire more customer service people.

It’s interesting to note that when you call one of these 800 numbers to sign up for a service or open up a new account, your wait time is usually less than 30 seconds. On top of that you don’t have to input your life’s information into your phone before being granted an audience with another human being. Let’s not reward the loyal existing customers, let’s suck in the new ones with promises of unparalleled service.

Until things change, kindly continue to hold, your call will be answered in the order it was received or when our service people get back from their vacations. In the meantime, please press one if you agree, press two if you disagree, press three if your name is Chip and you live in Mumbai and press four to hang up.

Lee Degenstein is a Columnist at Large for HealthNewsDigest.com. He has covered the financial markets for print and broadcast media for more than 15 years. Mr. Degenstein was also the news director and morning anchor at two major radio stations in New Jersey. He has been a reporter/contributor to United Press International, The Associated Press, The Mutual Broadcasting System and New York 1 News. A former winner of the Associated Press award for 'best business story' he lives and works in New York City. Mr. Degenstein can be reached by email at:

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