I understand a company wanting to use technology to its advantage, but at the same time, I feel offended when answering a call on my phone and listening to a recording. Making matters worse, the recording asks questions and responds to my answers, which determine whether I get to talk to a human being.
Most often those calls come from a company wanting to sell me something. Most of those calling are trying to sell supplement insurance to enhance my Medicare health care policy.
To double the insult, the majority of the callers use a phone prefix that matches mine – I still have 320 as my prefix since my phone number hasn’t changed since moving south. I’m sure the logic to using the same prefix is that I will assume the caller might be someone I know, and better the chance I’ll answer the call.
Since phones have begun to identify “potential spam,” I don’t even bother answering a call identified so. I figure if it is someone I know, they will leave a voicemail requesting a return call.
If you aren’t 65 years old yet, you will be surprised by the number of companies trying to sell you “the best” supplements available.
Another annoyance experienced on the phone is having your call answered by an “automated” system (recorded voice directing your call to the right person), and how long you spend getting to talk to a live person.
Worse yet is when you are put on hold for the “next available agent.” Just last week my bride needed to speak to someone in the Social Security office since her monthly payment didn’t appear in her bank account. The first day she called she was told (by a recorded message) her wait would be 90 minutes. Nearly four hours later she had to give up waiting because we needed to leave for an appointment. The next morning she was told her wait time would be less than 20 minutes. Just over an hour later a person answered her call and explained that recovering her money could take up to ten days – it was deposited in the wrong account – somewhere.
This is just my opinion, but shouldn’t the Social Security office apologize and immediately electronically deposit her money in her account? I guess it’s not the way it works. Also, shouldn’t it be a much faster recovery time since everything is done electronically and there should be an immediate trail to the money? I guess not.
To add to the disappointment of the delay and wait time when calling Social Security, we found out, from a Social Security website, that if you want to go to a Social Security office to face-to-face speak to an agent, you have to have an appointment; which means you have to call to get an appointment, and will very likely wait, and wait, and wait.
All the waiting time made me wonder what would happen if the caller could not find the time to wait – then again, most people calling Social Security are probably retired, so Social Security probably figures retired people have all the time in the world to wait for someone they can speak to.
I know I’m old-fashioned, but I preferred the days when a live, breathing human being answered my phone call, AND directed me to a live, breathing human being who could answer my questions. I’m betting those days are long-gone.
Have A Good Week!
