gethuman

Back in the “old days,” if you needed to call a company about some issue, your call would be answered by an operator. Now you might get put on hold and forgotten, but your first contact would be a human voice that would listen to your concern and route you to the person or departmen t that he/she felt would be best to handle your issue.

Then, along came automatic telephone answering systems. You now have to begin your journey through the labyrinth of getting to a human by hitting a series of number buttons, or, even worse, speaking to a blasted machine like it was a human.

Call me a Luddite, but I feel that you need to be flesh and blood to rate that privilege.

Anyhow, today's FamilyFirst site is called gethuman. Here's their mission:

The gethuman project is a consumer movement to improve the quality of phone support in the US. This free website is run by volunteers and is powered by over one million consumers who demand high quality phone support from the companies that they use.

The most useful part of the site is the Tips section, to help you get through the electronic hurdles and get a real person on the other end of your phone call.

For instance, try hitting 0 repeatedly. Or go to account collections, since they always answer the phone the fastest.

Good stuff!

Also, check out their database of companies and their shortcuts to quickly get to a live person.

http://www.gethuman.com/

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