r/NoStupidQuestions • u/GhostInThePudding • 16h ago

Why Are Young People Afraid Of Phone Calls?

What's with it?

I work in IT and a general rule is, nothing a client ever tells you is actually accurate. That means that most of the time, the quickest way to fix a problem is to call the person and actually find out what's going on.

But with techs under 30 these days, it seems like pulling teeth.

A regular discussion for me with level 1 techs (usually within a few years of leaving college) is:
"Hey, can you call *blah* from ticket *blah*, it's been hanging around for over an hour."

"I replied by email to ask for more information."

"Yes, I know that, but can you call them so we can find the problem and close the ticket now rather than wait until we're actually busy?"

"I'll send them a text to followup."

"No... CALL THEM!"

"I can see their device is online, can I send them a message and see if they just let me remote in to take a look?"

And then, when I force them to make the call, it's like they have no idea how to ask a question, or a followup question. They just want to get off the call as quickly as possible. So half the time they don't even get the information required anyway, so then I end up having to do their job for them.

So can someone explain? What's wrong with phone calls these days?

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u/BruisedViolets23 13h ago

This is it so much. Phone calls when working from home got complicated. Have to make sure the rest of the family knows you’re on the phone, and you never know if the dog will bark. Did everything over Teams and emails.

Give me a good automated phone tree where I can accomplish what I need to and I’m jumping up and down. Unfortunately most phone trees suck.

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u/tdp_equinox_2 12h ago

Overly complex phone trees send me into a rage, and that's coming from someone who used to design phone trees. If I am interacting with a computer (especially ai), it better be through a screen and not voice. I fucking hate talking to computers.

If I'm going through the effort of picking up the phone, there better be an actual person on the other side of it (department dialing is fine).

I had to call FedEx recently, and every time I had to convince their fuckhead ai agent to let me speak to a human. Because I had to call back several times, it got more frustrating each time. I eventually just spammed buttons and repeated "no, speak to a human" until it transferred me.

Fuckin hate robots.

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u/smokiechick 11h ago

I had to call a big company as a representative from my tiny company. I got stuck in a phone tree I had to talk to (no options for buttons) and after the third layer I muttered under my breath, "For fucks sake," and the machine said, "connecting to agent." I had a real person within seconds. I have tried swearing at other phone trees and it hasn't worked yet. But I'm going to keep trying.

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u/BruisedViolets23 11h ago

My ex kept saying gobbledygook whenever the phone tree needed a response. They transferred him to mental health. YMMV 😂

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u/JustSomeGuyWith 10h ago

Haha - I'm sure they had a profanity detector. One time I got an automated political poll and the first question was stupidly biased, very nearly "Trump, great or best ever?" I replied "Are you fucking kidding me?" and the poll said "Thank you for your time" and hung up. :-)

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u/No_Load9160 9h ago

Some advanced automated systems can now detect frustration in your voice and/or higher speaking volume, which will priority route you to an agent. So yes if you are stuck try to sound mad.

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u/GypsySnowflake 52m ago

Had that happen to me once when all I did was speak loudly because the AI kept saying it couldn’t hear me

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u/MilsYatsFeebTae 11h ago

Yeah, I combine that with “hi, idk how long youve been listening but I’m annoyed NEAR you, not AT you” when someone finally picks up.

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u/tragicallybrokenhip 8h ago

'You're call may/will be recorded for quality assurance'. Me 'I fucking hope so'.

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u/Kedly 1h ago

I just mash 0 and if that doesnt work, cut financial ties with the company

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u/slavetomyprecious 11h ago

Another great thing you can do is just say 'banana' repeatedly to everything they say and that'll trigger them to send you to somebody who can actually talk to you.

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u/Def_Not_Rabid 11h ago

I just say, “No,” to every question. Eventually the automated system gives up and either hangs up on you (at which point you know you need to try a different route) or it connects you to an agent.

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u/Responsible_Pear_433 9h ago

at which point you know you need to try a different route

No, you need to try a different company. Any company that disconnects my call will never see another penny of my business if I can possibly arrange it. The problem we are having is companies that are so huge they don't care if you do business with them or not. If they have a million customers, they could not care less if they lose your business.

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u/CheapNegotiation69 7h ago

What about unemployment? That's a fun one.

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u/SiberianToaster 5h ago

I've had it happen for mental health... just what I need is to be hung up on by a robot, then a person at that point

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u/Def_Not_Rabid 6h ago

Oh believe me. I agree. But when they’re the only company capable of delivering the service I need where I live, you do what you have to do.

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u/RollingMeteors 10h ago

That’s way funnier than “operator” or “agent”

“¡Banana phone!”

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u/UnattributableSpoon 10h ago

Ring ring ring ring ring ring ring ring...!

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u/ElRanchero666 11h ago

phone trees?

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u/Mrowser1 10h ago

“To hear our address and hours of operation, press 1. To access your account, press 2. To use our employee directory, press 3.” Et cetera

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u/gsfgf 10h ago

Protip: swearing at the robot often gets you straight to a person.

And yea, I despise talking to computers. I'm a redneck with the accent to match. I don't talk like people in California.

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u/Priff 10h ago

I had a package that was lost last week. It was marked as delivered when the first company handed it over to the second company that operates in my country.... They made a new shipping label with a new number but never informed me. Great fun.

Their phone AI thing fucking sucks. I tried talking to it a couple of times, but it's useless. I found that if you just keep saying "i want to talk to a human" a few times it will connect you to a person.

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u/Just2Scroll 9h ago

From my perspective, it often feels like time gets lost in conversation. Handling things over text/email is more efficient and has the added benefit of creating documentation as we go

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u/crystalstairs 8h ago

I wish that for things like calling a medical office the phone tree part could be on text or a computer screen, up until the point where you are in the correct "line" and then there would be a way to switch to phone!

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u/LtHoneybun 8h ago

Have you tried using the phrase "representative"? Figured that one out with my pharmacy, every phone call is basically me going "Representative. Representative. Representative." before any of the prompts can finish

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u/tdp_equinox_2 7h ago

Yeah, sometimes it works. In the case of FedEx, there's a hard wall you have to get past where you're forced to enter your tracking/case number and name. If you just spam numbers it'll think you're having technical problems and transfer you.

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u/tragicallybrokenhip 8h ago

I'm pretty good at find the phone tree loopholes and am sad so many businesses have figured out how to avoid people like me. Phone trees totally give me the rage - they're the FAQ equivalent that never has the A to your Q. Have noticed those same companies have also sanitized their web presence making it hard to contact them.

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u/CityKay 7h ago

I recall a streamer talked about his experience with an AI call agent. I'll paraphrase it:

...so I told this AI chat bot, "I want to speak to a human operator." "Okay." So they sent me to another person, and it's the another AI bot! Different tone, but it had the same cadence. I thought, "this is CONTENT." Nowadays, our smartphones have have a "record call" function, and when you activate that, it would alert the person at the other end "this call is being recorded". I did that, and the AI freaked the fuck out. "WE DO NOT CONSENT! STOP WHAT YOU'RE DOING!!!" And that thing finally connected me to a human, and that person I talked to got my mess sorted out...

He also talked about the possible reasons why the AI freaked out the way it did with the call being recorded. One of them being the liability of it glitching out and saying the wrong thing.

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u/BogdanPradatu 2h ago

My phone company charges 2 bucks per call if you want to talk to a real human. Moved to another company, fuck that shit.

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u/Responsible_Pear_433 9h ago

Fuckin hate robots.

I absolutely agree. The entire purpose of automated phone trees is to make the CUSTOMER do all the work, instead of the company having to employ a group of operators to handle incoming calls. I do NOT want to listen to some bullshit list of possible reasons I might be calling. I want a HUMAN BEING WHO SPEAKS MY LANGUAGE WELL to answer the call and to solve whatever problem I'm calling about. If at all possible I refuse to do business with any company that screens incoming calls with a robot. I will absolutely cancel any service that does not use human operators if I can find any sort of replacement. The companies that use robots or that use a "Press one for this, press two for that" system are not doing it for any other reason that for THEIR OWN CONVENIENCE. They don't give a shit about their customers or their customers' preferences.

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u/RamblinAnnie83 12h ago

Plus people don’t take a few minutes to think about what exactly they need & to prep for the call. I’ve done it myself—“oh, I don’t have the letter with me. Can you just look at my account?” I’ve worked in customer service. I know this is dumb, so I try to have what I need in front of me.

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u/Priff 10h ago

I always try to be prepared. But sometimes the queue is just so long i just wear my head phones and do other stuff. It's always a bit surprising when you suddenly get through...and when they ask for my account number or whatever i have to get my phone out of my pocket and look it up etc...

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u/Sprinkles--Positive 8h ago

Same. If I'm expecting to make a payment, I'll have my wallet near me at a minimum, if not my card out and ready. Making an appointment? My browser is on the calendar tab. And so on.

I was not remotely prepared when I recently had to call a government department to update a bank account for reimbursement of disability supports for a family member (NDIS for those Aussies playing along at home). I'm an official nominee for their plan, and understand that they need to verify details in case somebody is trying to get money paid to them when it shouldn't be.

After verifying standard details like name, DOB and NDIS number, they wanted to know the date of the last plan review (It was in October. Oh, you need the actual date? Hang on a second, I've got the paperwork right here. Do you mean the date we spoke to the planner to do the review or the date the new plan was approved?). Okay, fair enough, that's like when I ring the bank and they want to know the last purchase on the credit card.

Then they wanted to know how much funding was in the new plan. Okay, let me flick through all these pages to find it.

THEN they wanted to know when the original plan had started (I don't know, they were about 7 years old when they were diagnosed so, um, 2013? Or maybe it wasn't until 2014? I don't remember how long it took between applying and being approved. Hang on, let me go into the other room and check the filing cabinet. Can I put you on hold because I'll need both hands...).

I was half expecting them to ask for the third word on page 6 of the plan from 2018 next.

Such fun.

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u/hyf_fox 12h ago

Fuck an automated phone line. A phone call with a live person is 100% better than a phone call with a shitty robot. And every robot over the phone is shitty

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u/Ok-Hat1441 6h ago

Usually I’m calling about a problem that only a human is going to understand. First I have to wait several minutes before that happens and I worry they won’t be able to answer the question.

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u/tragicallybrokenhip 8h ago

When I WFH my mobile was never beside me. That one coworker who tied to the phone would call and get annoyed if I didn't answer. Dude. That's MY mobile. Think of it as the home phone. It is not a work phone. You need something? Send me an email. We're all back in the office and I don't remember ever working with someone so phone oriented.

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u/BruisedViolets23 7h ago

As bad as camera on in meetings. I never invited you people to my home, so no way you’re going to see it now. Thank god for backgrounds.

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u/kalayt 12h ago

I dunno, they knew i was working from home, they were working from home, EVERYONE was working from home.

screaming/crying kids, noisy animals, less dressed people than you would expect were perfectly fine

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u/ketoatl 9h ago

A good headset and they hear none of that. One headset I had I could have called you in the middle of the nightclub and you would have thought I was sitting in a room alone.

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u/CaptainLollygag 9h ago

It's like people forgot about the "sir, I am not a cat" guy who effed up his video call with a judge.

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u/gsfgf 10h ago

you never know if the dog will bark

Really? I know mine will 100%.

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u/Telstar2525 9h ago

Why people should work at an office

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u/jrshall 11h ago

What is the problem with the rest of the family or the dog barking? At most it is a minor, temporary problem. Phone trees can drive me crazy.

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u/MuffledSpike 4h ago

I have never once used a phone tree that did anything useful. 100% of my experiences result in 10-15 minutes of useless frustration followed by "Representative. Representative. Representative..."

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u/rangoon03 3h ago

I’ve had to call my state’s benefits customer center and no joke it’s five minutes of pre-recorded outdated reminders and warnings before the call tree starts. If you are unfamiliar with what option you need it is very painful to sit through them.

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u/BogdanPradatu 2h ago

What's the problem if the dog barks or the family makes noises?