I have called more customer service numbers than I would care to count, for a myriad of different reasons, and the automated phone system has yet to resolve a single issue. Instead, the menus are an impediment, making me feel like a mouse in a maze. I’m not even rewarded with cheese when I find the exit. Instead, I have to listen to fifteen minutes of elevator music periodically interrupted by an excessively cheerful recorded voice saying how much they appreciate my call. Then I get to speak to a real person.

I’m all for using technology to make processes more efficient and reliable, but this application has created more problems, at least from my perspective, than it has solved. I would love to call a customer service number and hear a friendly, “Hello, how may I help you?” on the other end. If companies spent more money hiring people to answer phones rather than on the menu-driven phone system, they’d be able to provide personal customer service. With the menus, they end up frustrating the very people they’re allegedly helping.

I recently discovered a way to reduce the pain associated with phone menus, at least after the first call. I write down each menu item as I dial it. If I ever have to call again (I’ve had to call my old mortgage company seven times so far), I can zip through the menu.

Before using that technique, I would listen to each menu option every time I called, trying to figure out which one would get me to an operator. I’ve tried dialing ‘0′ but that rarely worked. I also hit the buttons like a crazed woodpecker in an attempt to overload the system, thus leading me to a person, but the calm voiced just kept telling me I hadn’t dialed a valid menu option. There were times I would dial an option, then go back to the main menu and only then hear the option for speaking to a service representative.

I get the impression that companies are trying to keep me from talking to them, and I’m not the only one who has noticed this trend. Unlike the article however, I consider e-mail a suitable replacement as long as it takes less than 24 hours to get a response. After all, I don’t have to listen to another muzak version of “Smells Like Teen Spirit” when I send an e-mail.