Welcome to the Forum from the BBC World Service.
I'm Izzy Lawrence.
Today we're talking about customer service, specifically those interactions we make via telephone.
I should warn you that this programme will be recorded for quality and training purposes.
I imagine the following will be familiar to many of you, wherever you live.
Your call is very important to us.
To connect you to the department that can best help you,
please press one of the following options on your telephone keypad.
For sales, press 1.
For account inquiries, press 2.
To upgrade your product, press 3.
To extend your contract with us, press 4.
To hear those options again, press 0.
Yes, the dreaded call menu, also known as the phone tree or interactive voice response.
It can send you going round and round in circles.
Forum listener Karen is not a fan.
you have to press one and then you're given another choice and then you have to press three and then you're given another choice and then you press five and then after that you get put through to an automated message that directs you to the website and then they cut you off and i've been around those phone helplines several times just trying different options not always the ones that suit me just to see
if I can get to a person and very often I can't it usually ends with a please go to the website and I get cut off so then I go to the website and then you get a chat bot which sometimes are helpful but very often your query isn't in their sort of memory bank so then they can't help you or then they direct you to another website and then they cut you off I'm finding some companies are brilliant.
You can get through to a person straight away and they're very helpful.
Others,