Calling AT&T for help with my account wasn't the worst experience, but it also wasn't the smoothest. The automated agent kept misunderstanding me or ignoring my requests, which made it a bit hard to get through the system to talk to someone. I wanted help figuring out why my bill was a bit higher this month than it had been previously, but I spent quite a bit of time arguing with the computer before I was able to actually talk to someone. Despite these problems, I still got to an agent in under 5 minutes, so I can't complain too much.
I'm sure people call AT&T on a regular basis for a variety of issues that range from issues with their billing to problems with their service or possibly the U-Verse products. AT&T also has its own cable and landline service, so there's a high potential for things to go wrong. Additionally, there are outages from time to time, and this probably creates problems that result in high call numbers. Therefore, even if it did take 5 minutes to get to an agent, that isn't entirely horrible.
When I first called, I heard the familiar jingle, was warned that my call would be monitored, and then a robotic voice assistant told me, "If you're calling regarding your AT&T wireless or cell phone service, press 1. All other callers, press 2. I pressed 1 but it repeated the question again because it wouldn't recognize my input. I then pressed 1 again but had no luck. There was a little background noise where I was, but not enough to explain how it wasn't picking up my response.There was a pause after three missed tries, and it said, "Thank you, please wait while we process your request. What's the issue you are calling about?"
At this point, I kept it simple and said, "Talk to customer service." It asked me to expand, stating, "So, I can help you get to the right agent, what’s the phone number on the account." After I gave my phone number, it again attempted to talk to me, saying, "Now, before I connect you to agent, can you give me more details about how I can help with your account?" I said, "Talk to an agent," and it once again said, "Please wait, 1 minute while I handle your request." It was like we were going in circles.
Finally, it asked for my passcode, which I had to repeat twice for it to hear correctly. Then, it said, "Okay, thanks. One minute while I get an agent to help you." Instantly, Mark picked up and he was very helpful. He spoke slowly and was easy to understand and extremely nice. The great service made it worth the hassle with the call system.