Agreed, the 2 most annoying thing for me when I have to call into a business:
1. "You can find the answers you need online at our website: w w w dot our business name dot com" - First I would never call if I could do what I needed online, second get me to the menu already. I hate waiting 30-60sec+ for a prerecorded message that doesn't tell me anything new.
2. "We are experiencing higher than normal call volume" - Bullshit. I'll bet my right arm that either that message is always there OR you are "somehow" always horribly understaffed which is your problem, not mine. I accepted this at the start of COVID but pretty much every business has left that message in even well after it was reasonable.
I had a recent trip to Japan, wanted to exchange some yen before I left, so I called around to a bunch of local banks and got to experience some exquisitely terrible phone systems.
The worst, and this is a new one to me: you get a 30 second message about how you can do everything online (except ask if they sell foreign currency), and how the menu options have changed, and then you finally pick the option to talk to a teller... and after half a dozen rings with nobody answering, it says "sorry, guess nobody's around" and JUST FUCKING HANGS UP ON YOU.
Also, turns out banks no longer keep foreign currency on-site, not even Wells Fargo which was always a go-to for me. Another case of "COVID gave us an excuse to do what we've been wanting to do for a long time"
That's a good one, as if I've ever remembered or trusted that menu options are the same. It's another one of those useless platitudes that just wastes time. Surely anyone who just hits a number and gets connected to the wrong place will just call back and listen to the options the second time, no need for that useless message.
I'd greatly prefer if they just immediately started listing off menu options.
Also a variant on #1 that drives me batty is when they use that in the "hold music". Every 30-60 seconds the music stops and a voice repeats the BS about how you can find what you need online. It's a tease, you think your call was finally answered, and it rubs salt in wound by advertising something that clearly failed in it's task.
Every 30-60 seconds the music stops and a voice repeats the BS...
...at four times the volume of the hold music, so you can't just set volume and forget it. And when a human comes on, that will be attenuated at least 10dB from what the hold music was.
Pretty sure this is like, did you unplug it, wait 10 seconds, and plug it back in again? They want to say "listen carefully" but have to dress it up a bit so it doesn't sound rude.
1. "You can find the answers you need online at our website: w w w dot our business name dot com" - First I would never call if I could do what I needed online, second get me to the menu already. I hate waiting 30-60sec+ for a prerecorded message that doesn't tell me anything new.
2. "We are experiencing higher than normal call volume" - Bullshit. I'll bet my right arm that either that message is always there OR you are "somehow" always horribly understaffed which is your problem, not mine. I accepted this at the start of COVID but pretty much every business has left that message in even well after it was reasonable.