There are few things more frustrating than calling a company and trying to speak to an actual human being. You call customer service and immediately enter a maze of automated prompts. Press one for billing. Press two for technical support. Then comes the automated voice that somehow misunderstands everything you say.
Eventually, you find yourself yelling, “REPRESENTATIVE!” into the phone.
That frustration is exactly why GetHuman.com is such a great idea.
GetHuman helps consumers cut through complicated customer service systems and find the fastest way to reach a real person. The site provides customer service phone numbers, instructions for navigating automated menus and guides for resolving common problems with thousands of companies.
The idea originated with entrepreneur Paul English, who later became a cofounder of the travel search company KAYAK. English became frustrated with automated customer service systems and began compiling phone numbers and the button combinations needed to bypass automated menus and reach someone who could actually help.
The information was originally published as the IVR Cheat Sheet. IVR stands for Interactive Voice Response, the technology behind many of those automated telephone menus we have all learned to hate. The project eventually became GetHuman.com in 2006 and continued growing as consumers shared information about their experiences dealing with different companies.
Today, GetHuman maintains information for tens of thousands of customer service numbers and offers additional tools designed to make dealing with companies easier. Consumers can search for a company and quickly find information about how to contact customer service and how to handle common problems.
In some situations, GetHuman’s technology can even wait on hold, saving consumers from spending valuable time listening to hold music. Anyone who has spent an hour waiting for a representative understands just how useful that can be.
The basic GetHuman service is free, and the company says more than 50 million people visit the website each year. That number also says something about the current state of customer service.
Technology was supposed to make communicating with companies easier, but many businesses have created layers of automated systems that make reaching a person unnecessarily difficult. You can spend 20 minutes answering automated questions only to discover that none of the choices actually addresses your problem.
Sometimes you simply need a human being who can listen, understand the situation and fix it.
That is what makes GetHuman such a smart concept. It identified a frustration almost everyone has experienced and created a simple resource to help solve it.
The next time you are trapped in an automated customer service system, remember one name: GetHuman.com.
Because sometimes the best use of technology is simply helping one human being talk to another.
