Just a peeve of mine. When you call these 1-800 numbers for support the cheesy automated voice says “to serve you better please enter your card number now…” or “to serve you better please enter your 10 digit telephone number starting with your area code…” then when you eventually get a “live” person on the telephone… they ALWAYS ask you for your number again. WTF? —Peeved
This article appears in Jan 5-11, 2012.
AHAHAHAHAHA that’s so true!
It could be a confirmation thing. *shrug*
OB, they are likely making sure you typed the number correctly. Likely a lot of people just press a variety of buttons until the other end transfers the call to a live person.
why would you enter your credit card number to some automated voice? That’s a good way to get all your money stollen.
perhaps a way to ensure the company doesn’t get a lot of auto-dialers through to actual live people waiting to TRY to help you…
spam lists are a bitch.
Orgasmatron it’s NOT a confirmation thing at all. I used to do tech support back when i was a student. The agent has no clue customers are even being asked this question until one finally says “Uh.. i gave you that already”..
I could see if this happened SOMETIMES. I’d chalk it up to a bug. But the truth is, it’s busywork to keep you in the queue longer because these call centers are somewhat understaffed. It reduces your hold time by making you feel like part of that wait is spent DOING SOMETHING.
at least that’s my theory. No one ever told us why this happens. But it sure is dumb.
Great bitch OB, just about every IVR operates this way too… make you wonder what other loopholes are in place with your personal information…
My theory – by entering you phone number at the request of the “cheesy automated voice” you are in fact unwittingly adding your phone number to a list….a list that this company will then sell to the highest bidders who will then proceed to call you every night (usually at suppertime) to try and sell you shit you neither need nor want, all in an effort to “serve you better”. How sweet of them.
Yes that I agree is annoying.
This is my favorite bitch of ALL TIME!! I hate when I have to enter my bank card number in, only to have the live person ask me for it again. What’s the point of putting it in the first time?!
With some (and note I said some) IVR systems, it will actually use what’s entered to pull up your account information for the person who receives your call … but they then ask other questions to validate you are the person that belongs to that number before they ask … “how can I help you today?”.
i fucking hate those robot fucking answering systems too. and they never help, most of the time. just waste your time, even trying to connect to a human, and when you do, they are in calcutta or some fucking third world country.
OMG this ALWAYS pisses me off, I do remember asking a “live” person this but I cannot remember what they said as it was insignificant at the time, but FFS It pisses me off when it happens!!
I’ve always wondered why they did that as well? Persevere gives a good explanation though, that makes sense. Good bitch!! (not you Persevere)
LOL, Troodon … ah … just call me Glinda … my chosen mode of transportation is a bubble.