Phone call asymmetry

You get a phone call, but you’re away from your phone or you can’t answer it right at that moment. You call the number back and hear an automated voice say:

Thank you for calling [some business], for accounts press 1, to place a new order press 2….

Perhaps, by sheer luck (or skill) you manage to navigate the labyrinth of options and talk to a real human (sidebar: there’s a circle of hell reserved for the flow-chart designer to creates a branch that ends up in them hanging up on you).

So you get to a real human and say; “I’ve had a missed call from this number”.. and they are like… ermmm, ok? You’re never getting back to the specific agent (or maybe even the right department) that called you in the first place.

This is asymmetry.

For most cases, this is annoying. But it’s even worse when this situation is the stock-advice when a lot of money is (potentially) on the line.

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You get a call from a blocked number, you answer this time, and they say “we are from your back”. Right now, the advice is to hang up and call your bank on a number you find from your bank’s letters or website.

For me, that involve at least a 10minute wait listening to terrible elevator music. Then which department do you select? What do you do when you talk to the person?

It’s a joke, there has to be a better way.