Our menu options have changed...

Once or twice a month, I end up calling a company’s customer service or support line after exhausting all options I am aware of on the internet.

When contacting a company by phone, I always wished there were a system in place where I could directly reach the department without having to listen to “our menu options have changed”, “most of the answers are available on our website”, “if you think your computer is infected…”, “if you are interested in our blah offer”, “if you wish to watch PPV blah, press” etc. What makes it worse is friendly voice recognition systems where you end up sounding like a robot (it will get better, I know).

Something as simple as a “Fast Access Code" should fix this. The company sets up a simple tree structure on their website which reflects their phone menu or a subset of it (in case they wanted to hide some sections of the menu). Each leaf node is assigned a unique number.

Users Web savvy users will go to this page, find their FAC and call the company.

The recording starts by saying, “Thanks for calling Acme Corporation, if you have a Fast Access Code, please press 0 or press 1.” If they press 1, they are taken to the regular phone menu.

This may not expedite my hold time but I can at least get to the right department faster.

Elevator music is super cool anyway.