Reach a human when you call customer service

This is an amazing concept: A Web site called gethuman.com ("get human")gives instructions for avoiding the interminable voice menus used by companies and government agencies -- and reaching a real customer-service person. We're bookmarking this baby. If the company you need to contact isn't listed, a tips page tells you how to find the phone number and gives some suggestions for reaching a person, like punching the zero on your phone repeatedly, mumbling when the machine tells you to speak, or asking for "account collections," which generally is quick to answer the phone.

"When you do finally find a human, ask them how to connect directly the next time (in case your call gets disconnected, etc.), and be sure to tell us so we can then list their number here," the site says.

The site, founded by consumer advocate Paul English, provides a message board and also rates companies' customer-service phone system performance against the gethuman standards. We don't need to tell you that the F's vastly outnumber the A's.

There's also a translation guide for what the voice menu really means. "Your call is important to us" means this, according to gethuman.com: "You are not important enough for us to have a human answer your call, but we think you are stupid enough to feel good when we say you are important."

http://www.gethuman.com/