by Neil Bauman, Ph.D.
Press “1” for sales. Press “2” for service. Press “3” for accounts… How often have you encountered one of those ubiquitous voice menu systems? You make a futile attempt to understand what “the voice” is saying. With your poor hearing and limited ability to discriminate sounds on the phone, you are in Voice Menu hell. Vainly you search for the magic button that will connect you with a live human. Whatever happened to that “Press ‘H’ for human” button?
When you are hard of hearing, it is difficult enough just talking with a live person on the phone. At least with a live person you can ask them to repeat what they said, or spell it out, or use different words that you understand better. Not so when you reach one of those ubiquitous voice menu systems, otherwise knows as IVR or Integrated Voice Response systems.
However, you are not totally at the mercy of these Voice Mail systems. Here are some things you can try to reach a live human.
1. Press 0 or 0# repeatedly, sometimes quickly, ignoring any “invalid entry” messages.
2. Say “agent” or “representative”.
3. Just hold, pretending you have only a rotary phone.
4. Connect to sales; they always seem to answer quickly, then have them transfer you to the department you need.
5. When you find a human, ask them how to connect directly the next time.
If you still can’t get through, all is not lost. There is a website that gives you what to do to get through to a live person at various major companies in America (and some elsewhere). Simply go to https://gethuman.com/ and type in the name of the company and follow the resulting directions for that company. It’s that easy!