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Question for the week
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Posted: 08/15/07 Paul English is my new hero. He is the software engineer who founded www.gethuman.com, which has now been trademarked as the gethuman™ movement. Originally, English created his site to publicize how to reach a human on the telephone at many of the country’s largest businesses. For instance, if you want to get past the automated gatekeeper at the Saturn Automobile Company, you press 3 instead of 0. For Toyota, you press 6. Knowing these little tips helps reduce the time and frustration involved in consumer/corporate communication. But English and his group of associates haven’t stopped there. They’ve actually created standards for good telephone communication and assigned grades to five hundred companies based on those standards. Out of the entire group, only ten companies -- one percent of the five hundred involved -- received an “A” rating, because they forego automated telephone systems altogether. This means when you call their corporate telephone numbers you get a human being immediately. These companies are Hertz, Commerce Bank, Dillard’s Department Stores, Land’s End, L.L. Bean, Nordstrom’s, Comfort Inn, Day’s Inn, Hyatt Corporation, and Walt Disney World. This list is dominated by high end department stores and hotel chains, while -- surprise! surprise! -- all the major TV and satellite companies made the “F” list. They include Comcast, DirecTV, Sirius, and Time Warner Cable. And, because these companies are not particularly user friendly when it comes to telephone communication, English ferreted out ways to reach a human. For DirecTV, for instance, when you call the 800 number and the automated voice answers, don’t say anything or press any button. This gets you in line to speak to a real live person. For Time Warner Cable, press “O” at each prompt and ignore the automated messages. Unfortunately each company has its own quirks, so what works for one doesn’t necessarily work for another. That’s why www.gethuman.com is so helpful and Paul English is my new best friend.
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