If I were to ask you to list 10 things that frustrated you this week, I would imagine dealing with company phone menus would be on the list. Although many are well designed, others are stressful. Luckily, our friend Barry, pointed us to a website that offers access tips and a cheat sheet to reach a human for over 300 US and UK companies. They also have a searchable database with more entries awaiting verification.

A well designed automated phone system can benefit a company and its customers. All too often, we run into unforgiving systems at some customer support center that force callers through too many menus, require an account number or drop the caller at the point of transfer. Others may encounter voice recognition problems because of accents, background noise and even their phone equipment.

One solution is to consult the IVR cheat sheets at GetHuman. The site provides an extensive list of verified “cheats” for over 300 company phone numbers. A “cheat” is the steps you take to get to a real person. The information can be displayed in three ways.

The default view is by category such as finance, travel, government and so on. This view includes hyperlinks where you can rate the company’s service or hop to their website.

The category view is also used if you wish to print the list. This list is beneficial for friends and relatives who have similar problems, but don’t have access to a computer.

A second view is alphabetical. This may be the fastest way to find an item, but the hyperlinks don’t appear so you can’t provide feedback.

The last view is the master view and is a resource to use if you didn’t find your company in the alphabetical listing. This link takes you to the QuickBase website that hosts the GetHuman master database. The database includes verified entries, entries awaiting validations and user requests.

Since this last view is a database, you have more options including exporting the data or finding a company. There is even an option to refine a view based on criteria you select from a query builder.

The Find feature on the top menu was good for spotting alternate names of companies which are known by abbreviations such as UPS. If you are a QuickBase subscriber you can email individual entries to others

Another reason I like this site is personal. I’m a “goat”. The term “goat” is used to identify a small percentage of people whose biometrics isn’t heard by a voice recognition system. I can answer questions when prompted, but the data never registers. The system then repeats the same command to me. Reminds me of one of Casey Stengel famous quotes, “déjà vu all over again”.

Referenced Resources

• GetHuman website: www.GetHuman.com
• GetHuman Master Database: https://www.quickbase.com/db/ba773tcmj