[JadeNB]

> Recently, I've noticed they hang up on this behavior

I've definitely had them ignore any sensible operator prompts, but actually hanging up? That's a step beyond. Care to name and shame any offenders?

(I've always enjoyed the claim, and once or twice believe I've observed the behaviour—though I am sceptical—that a lot of these systems scan for obscenity, and route to an agent. When I get a robocall while I'm out walking (phone for audiobooks), I always curse at it for a while, just in case. Even though it almost never gets an agent, it's a good stress reliever!)

[michaelmrose]

I've worked phone support for a major cell carrier. Among the things I was told there by a manager.

- That people that spam zero should be hung up.

- We could do a fake accent if we could maintain it through the whole call.

- After they had deleted the feature for support to activate your new device as a cost saving measure we were to point users to the proper procedure to do it themselves on the web and tell them that feature was broken despite the fact that leads could still do this.

- To make up fake things we had in common to establish a relationship with the customer so they would give us better surveys.

Customer service is not their strong point.

[JadeNB]

That sounds terrible, but I'm confused by this one:

> - After they had deleted the feature for support to activate your new device as a cost saving measure we were to point users to the proper procedure to do it themselves on the web and tell them that feature was broken despite the fact that leads could still do this.

Does it mean that you were told to give instructions that you knew wouldn't work, or 'just' that you were told to direct users to the hard way of doing something even though there was an easier way of doing it?

[michaelmrose]

We were told to tell to customers that the feature was broken and that they had to do it themselves rather than pass it to team leads who in fact could do it in order to encourage users to do it themselves. Meanwhile we were providing support for the segment of customers the company considered most valuable. Most were paying $100-$250 a month.

[glitch003]

Frontier airlines absolutely does this. I think it's only during hours when there are not agents working, because I was able to reach an agent when I called again during more normal business hours.

But it did feel really weird hearing the automated system say "that is not a valid option. goodbye" and hang up on me. No indication that I could call back during certain hours to reach a human.