tips for customer support phone calls and better service

tips for each company

The gethuman site has detailed customer service info for many companies. Simply click on any company name to find tips specific to that business. Otherwise, see below for more general customer service tips.

See tips for a specific company »

Recent tips and stories from others

mary ellen anderson:
5 days ago for Time Warner Cable
"i have a dell and last jan i had tons of trouble with it and talked with the techs in india who are m ostly rude and you cant understand them.this week the same thing. im being pushed from one to the ..." more »
marnie:
5 days ago for WestJet
"looking for your answer to our feedback enquiry on mrs joan bracken file x4lqcr sent to you on dec 29 2009 what is going on phone agent 6133424791 or pax 6133423067 ..... where is your custo..." more »
verna unger:
5 days ago for WestJet
"complaint- no compensation from abbotsford to vancouver airport when our flight 554 was cancelled. NNSSFX" more »
(anonymous person)
5 days ago for Tracfone
"Tried this number and website phone number. Both times machine hung up on me. My sister tried to resolve this same problem and was on the phone for an hour or more, with problem unresolved." more »
bob-a- lou:
5 days ago for Turbo Tax (Intuit)
"they trick you into paying a refund processing fee while they advertize 'free'income tax prep...also have it set up so its almost impossible to delete state taxes so peaople will give up and just pay ..." more »

finding a toll-free phone number

To find the toll-free phone number for any US-based company, try calling 1-800-555-1212 or search Google for company name plus "phone numbers". Or maybe even searching for the company name and "president office" or "investor relations".

Tip: did you know that your phone company charges $1.49 or more each time you call 411? Instead, try using 1-800-FREE-411 or 1-800-GOOG-411 (Google's free 411 service).

For companies who try to hide their phone numbers, many times the Google search will find a page from a disgruntled customer who exposes the phone numbers for that company. For example, see these gripe pages about Amazon.com and PayPal and these for eBay and Walmart.

For a public company, you could also try searching EDGAR. The "10K" report includes information about corporate officers and the official company mailing address.

Got a good general tip for others?
Tell us your tip for getting better customer service »

Got a good tip for a specific company?
Find a specific company first and add a tip for that company »

getting to a human

Once you have a phone number, here are some tips to try to get through the computer to get to a live human:

  1. Interrupt. Press 0 (or 0# or #0 or 0* or *0) repeatedly, sometimes quickly. Unfortunately the same keystroke does not always work for each company. Many IVRs will connect to a human after a few "invalid entries", although some IVRs will hangup. :-(

  2. Talk. Say "get human" (or "agent" or "representative") or raise your voice, or just mumble. :) The IVR might connect you to a human after one of these key or unknown phrases.

  3. Just hold, pretending you have only an old rotary phone.

  4. Connect to account collections or sales or account cancellation; they always seem to answer quickly. First ask them for their name and rep number (so they know you are writing it down, and thus so they are more likely to help you.) Then ask them to transfer you to the department you need. Sometimes they will put you ahead of the queue, although sometimes they will send you to the end (and thus in those cases this tip is useless).

  5. Toll call. For credit cards, if the expected wait time is too long, hangup and try to call back on their non-toll-free number, as they often have shorter queues.

  6. Selecting the option for Spanish will sometimes get you a bilingual human more quickly than if you just waited for an English-only operator.

  7. (recent tip from a GETHUMAN user) "Whenever I call places that have a high call volume, I listen for a company directory. When it asks me for a last name keyed in, I type in one letter and it gives me a list of corresponding people. I keep doing this until I get someone. It's worked a lot."

When you do finally find a human, ask them how to connect directly the next time (in case your call gets disconnnected etc), and be sure to tell us so we can then list their number here. :-).

If one of the above does not work, the gethuman database contains tips and shortcuts for many different companies.

Got a good general tip for others?
Tell us your tip for getting better customer service »

Got a good tip for a specific company?
Find a specific company first and add a tip for that company »





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The gethuman™ website is Copyright 2004-2010 by Paul M. English; Updated 9 Feb 2010, 12:01 AM




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