gethuman on steroids

March 31, 2008 8:07 PM

In the same vein as gethuman [previously.previously.], Bringo! is a nice free little service that helps bypass the (decreasingly) minor annoyance of automated phone answering systems (aka IVRs). Only it does all the work for you.

It has been getting some steady press coverage since its creation, and the list of companies it can call for you has grown quite large. While some might be (rightfully) worried about typing their phone number into a webform, the company argues it's more private to use Bringo! than to call customer service centers directly.

posted by jckll (9 comments total)

Thanks, in advance, for alerting me for time in which I could be playing piano or languishing in the sun instead of stewing in my phone number punching angst.


Bookmarked.
posted by kozad at 9:02 PM on March 31, 2008

Pressing "0" at prompts often gets me to an operator.
posted by stbalbach at 9:35 PM on March 31, 2008

If you're wary of dishing out your number to an unknown company, give them your grandcentral number.
posted by acro at 9:48 PM on March 31, 2008

stbalbach - I have found that works too. I also found that, on many voice-recognition systems, you can simply say " I would like to speak to a person." The computer usually replies with " I think you said, I would like to speak to a customer service representative. Is this correct?" And when you say yes, bingo! Human!
posted by bradth27 at 9:48 PM on March 31, 2008

Grandcentral isn't giving out numbers at the moment, sadly.

Thanks for the link!
posted by streetdreams at 10:49 PM on March 31, 2008

90% of the time just saying nothing, pressing nothing does it.....
posted by HuronBob at 4:11 AM on April 1, 2008

Yep, I always just remain silent and don't press any numbers - you usually have to listen to the options being presented a couple of times, but then the systems give up and put you through to a live human. (A live human who tends to be completely unqualified to help, who has English as a second, possibly third, language, and who is forced to stick to such an exact script that they might as well be an automated system. Hey ho.)
posted by jack_mo at 4:28 AM on April 1, 2008

Are my wife and I alone in preferring NOT to talk to a human? Of course, there are still instances when we have an odd case not covered by the menu, but it's pretty rare.
posted by DU at 5:31 AM on April 1, 2008

Where's the service where I get to talk to a machine and it handles all the talking to humans for me, including the repeating myself, spelling my name, escalating the call, and getting results?
posted by notashroom at 7:18 AM on April 1, 2008 [1 favorite]