[JoshTriplett]

The answer I always give to "tell us what you need help with" is "representative" or "speak to a human". I despise the automated systems that respond to that with "before we can route you to a human, we need to know what you're calling about". Fortunately, some of those will take the continued statement of "representative" as a sign that they should give up and give you a human to talk to. Not all of them, though.

[throw4847285]

Have you encountered those voicemail AI customer service representatives? Those can't route you anywhere so you're stuck talking to a robot.

I was just trying to schedule my daughter's dentist appointment and had to spend 10 minutes talking to an AI when I could have found a time that worked in 30 seconds with a human. And at the end of the whole process, she got my daughter's name wrong. It was demoralizing.

[JoshTriplett]

I have yet to encounter a phone system that refuses to provide a human, at least within business hours. But I've encountered those online, definitely, that aggressively want to hide any way to reach a person for something that you know in advance will be outside their script.

[throw4847285]

This one rings until it's about to go to voicemail, and then all of a sudden a fake dial tone starts and an AI agent picks up. I've only encountered this type for small business owners, like dentist offices and lawyers. But it doesn't seem like there is a way to reach the actual person. I could be wrong though.

[LorenPechtel]

I've hit phone trees with no path to a human. Haven't gotten stuck on an AI yet, but I'm sure it will happen. The AIs never have the ability to resolve the odd cases.

[mrgoldenbrown]

Jetblue wouldn't let me talk to a human unless I agreed to pay $25.

[PaulHoule]

Most phone systems will put you through to a human if you pound the 0 enough. The better ones will tell the rep that you did so and they know you are mad as hell and won’t take it anymore and you never have to make the case that they’re going to lose $100,000 NPV because they won’t give you a $500 resolution.

[coffeefirst]

Some of them will also give up and escalate if you do a good enough Rahm Emanuel impression.