Get A Human On The Line

In the quest to get a human on the line you could become part of a waiting game.

"It's very upsetting and I say nasty things," said consumer Michael Yarborough. "Most of the time I hang up."

"It is so frustrating always being put on hold and transfered here and transfered there," said consumer Tommica Smith.

Not anymore. 7 On Your Side learned about a website you won't want to forget. It's called www.gethuman.com and it's got all the secrets to save you time. You just type in the name of any company and you get a faster way to get through to more than 1300 companies.

"And you're talking to a person and not a voice recording," said Smith. "I think that's great."

We found that one of the most useful parts of the website is if those first phone numbers don't work, they'll give you alternative ones, they'll tell you the average hold time, and they'll even tell you customer help tips and suggestions from others.

We checked out the gethuman.com link to tips about Verizon Wireless since the website said it was one of the most viewed. According to the website, customers have an average wait time of about 10 minutes but once we followed the tips we got a human in 30 seconds.

Verizon Wireless spokesperson Karen Schulz sent this statement:

"While I do not know much about gethuman.com and cannot speak to the value of this web resource, I can assure you that Verizon Wireless places the utmost importance on quality service for our customers. We have live employees in our retail stores as well as through our customer service lines (and throughout our organization) to ensure we offer customers the best and most timely service possible. Our high quality customer service is one reason J.D. Power and Associates' Wireless Regional Customer Satisfaction Index has consistently ranked Verizon Wireless highest in customer satisfaction for eighteen consecutive quarters. Our customers are our top priority. In fact, the Verizon Wireless credo (see below) is built upon this primary commitment."

Consumers like Phil Kirkley say they'll bypass www.gethuman.com in favor of going directly to a company website. When asked what his secret is Kirkley replied, "Persistence I guess."

And if you're not as patient as Phil, you may want to take a few seconds to click on www.gethuman.com. Those seconds could save you a lot of time.

Another easy way to get better phone numbers for a company is to head to the Better Business Bureau website. There you can enter the name of a company and get all of the business phone numbers listed on their files.

When you just can't get answers from a company you can sound off several ways:
-Federal Trade Commission
-SC Department of Consumer Affairs
-Attorney General's office
-Better Business Bureau