How many of us are so sick of--

wow you must have read my mind. that was going to be my next topic!!! how funny is that? anyway, that is one of my pet peeves. Why don't they just go and ask for every language before you actually move forward with your call? i once sat for 20 minutes before actually hanging up after waiting to talk to a "real person". i hate automated calls!

LOL pet peeves you took that word right out of my mouth. This is my biggest pet peeve the only thing that is even close to it is when you call a customer service number and you end up getting someone who cant speak english. I live in america i want a CLEAR english speaking person. sorry if that offened anyone but it gets very frustrating especially when you are trying to resolve a problem.

the one I hate is you go thru all the botton pushing so you can get a real person on the other end and the accent is so thick ya have to have them repeat several time before you get what they are saying

I prefer the push button responses over the ones where you have to wait until they're finished blabbing, then speak your answer. My DS always makes a noise, the dog barks, a train whistle blows, etc. Then I have to hear "I didn't catch your answer. Let me repeat the options." UGH!

I think they really need to make it that way because you have lots of different races in america..Even here in the philippines we have those,even if almost everyone speak english.they always have two choices.1 is for english,2 is for tagalog(our native language)..so normally i choose english because even if im familiar with my dialect.sometimes they use words that I really couldnt understand.So i prefer hearing the instructions in english.

i m sick of it too.it mekes no sense.seems so odd.i really get irritated sometimes.

I can`t stand it , especially when I press 1 for English and I end up having to speak to someone from India ( who can barely speak English ) then I have to spell out why I am calling, and they don`t understand I end up so angry , because I clearly want to speak to someone who is English . Not someone half way around the world who can barely speak it. So yes I am tired of these automated systems , that ask if you speak English , and still pass you on to someone trying to speak English. Now if I get someone I can`t understand or if they can`t understand me I hang up , and call back until I actually get somone who I (We) can both understand . I don`t do it to be rude I do it because We CANNOT UNDERSTAND EACHOTHER and WE both get frustrated at eachother, if I want English I mean English....

I called a car insurance place here in Colorado and the recording was actually in spanish with an option for english! WTF is that about??? I think it is very annoying. If they cant speak english first of all, how can they be here legally? Don't you have to somewhat speak english to pass the citizenship testing? I dont understand what our country is doing, never have. I went into the government social services office in Denver the other day and on the biggest wall in the place was the only painting in the building and guess what it was??... It was a mexican painting of a place in Mexico with the litte mexican cars, people, buildings, and all the mexican stuff. Is it just me or is this wrong? For some reason I was really offended by this. I think a big American flag should be on the wall of an American government office not some mexican painting of Mexico. Oh Well, I guess we are just supposed to accept it.

My favorite is the customer service lines that ask the specific reason why you are calling and then, or so it seems lately (3 calls so far), the longest wait times are for when you have a problem or want to cancel something! I have been trying to cancel my Verizon online (I got cable now) for a week and can't stand the wait!

I totally agree completely. Either make it English-only (as it should be in america), or add options for Chinese, Japanese, Russian, and so-on. I figure, most people I know who have come to this country say how much they hate it when Americans travel to THEIR countries and don't make an effort to know their language, but so many think nothing of coming over here and not bothering to learn OUR language...But we cater to them by offering customer service, signs, and things like that in languages other than English. I'm by no means racist; many of my closest friends are Hispanic...And let me tell you, many of THEM feel stronger about this issue than we do, and aren't afraid to tell their fellow countrymen to make an effort to learn English. Most of the Hispanics I know, in fact, are quite proud of their accomplishment in learning the language because it's allowed them to get farther ahead in this country. Sorry for the rant...But yeah, when I call for customer service, I want a person to answer, in English, and I DON'T want to have to go through a menu. I'll dmit, if I'm just paying a bill or checking an account balance, I don't normally mind, but I do most of that online anyway. The other thing that irritates me is how some companies have gotten wise to those of us who just hit Zero...Now, depending on where I'm calling, I'e actually heard the message "Sorry, you have pressed an invalid option", and if you keep doing it, the system just hangs up on you. Unfortunately, the reason we get so many thick accents and such bad English when we call most companies for customer service, of course, is because of outsourcing...Companies have realized they can pay people in another country less to do the work, thus increasing their profits. Personally, I think our government needs to find a way to penalize companies, especially the computer companies, who outsource all their tech support and customer service to places like India. This is nothing against the people there; I have no problem with Dell or Symantec or whoever providing Indian tech support to their customers in India...But provide English-speaking, American tech support to those of us here in the US. There needs to either be a penalty for outsourcing these jobs, or the companies need to be given some sort of incentive to keep the jobs here in the US. Okay, I'm done ranting...Sorry if that got a bit off-topic, but I think it's the only way we'll solve these problems.

What I hate the most is the automated systems where you have to talk to the compuetr instead of pressing numbers. A lot of times the computer cannot recognize what I have said and instead of letting me talk to a real person it will just hang up on me!!

Here's the thing about situations like this that bother me the most. In a specific case dealing with my cell phone company, I always get the recording that goes on forever and leads me here and there by pressing different numbers or saying different things to a recording.. which is supposed to be some 'artificial intelligenc'e type thing that responds to what you say.. and that is a huge annoynace to begin with. Then, when you learn how to get past all that and go straight to a 'real live' person, it is someone that doesn't speak English as a first language. My issue is not with that person, persay, but many companies are outsourcing employees in countries like India and it gets difficult to understand sometimes. I myself, am in the service industry and among other things, pride myself on being able to sort through most accents that different people have. When it is an unclear phone connection AND the person is talking with a heavy accent in their voice.. then it becomes even more frustrating.

yes, i think nowadays, most of the companies have these automated machines, probably, to take care of the bulk of calls that they receive everyday. but, i'm very impatient when it comes to waiting for all the numbers that the machine asks me to press before i can get to what i really wanted to inquire about in the first place. i still prefer talking to a HUMAN operator, instead of the machine, but sometimes, when i press 0 (which is normally what you need to press to reach the operator), i get an error message that i pressed the wrong number... then, i would have to do it all over again!

I know...this costomer care service is a big headache,i am sick of this automated machine talk..why dont they pick up the call and start talking.. i find this terrifically odd..everytime i call them,press 1 for english... I seriously hate it...

I find it very odd, if you want to live in AMerica, we should not have to offer Spanish speaking services, people should have to learn English.

This is pure frustration at its best. Seems like 90% of the time they have no menu to go directly to a person and menu's don't cover the subject you are inquiring about. Beter yet some firms have contracted their call systems out to contract companies and you get someone that either can not access the info or they are at an overseas location and have no clue how to respond to any thing other than a pre canned statement. If you haven't called many of the government agencies in the US lately like Social Security office, you should. Last time I had to, I was sent thru a menu and no choices applied the they transferred to an agent system and was put in holding que. After 15 mintues, an anouncement came on and said all agents are busy then, it simplely hung up.

Oh, I can't stand it. I also can't stand waiting while they say "press 1 for this dept, 2 for that dept, 3 for another." I just keep punching in 0 until I have a live person!

Not only is it in customer service but on signs everywhere in the city (LA, NY). There is just an overflow of an Hispanic population. There are better opportunities in America and because of those Spanish conquistadores, that moment in time has resulted in what is the current population.

I hate calling customer service anymore. If i wanted to talk to a computer i would search it up on the computer.

To me it is not odd,it is an evidence that dose companys are rendering service to a very large set of people,not to english speakin people only.in this case if you said it is odd,that shows that those organisation are not growing.