WSFA.com: News Weather and Sports for Montgomery, AL.Relief from 'phone frustration'

MONTGOMERY, AL (WSFA) - It doesn't seem to matter who you call these days -- your credit card company, your cell phone provider -- you always end up stuck on hold. But we have some solutions to your phone frustration.

We all know what those automated systems are like.

Charles Biggers complained, "They ask you if you want customer service, and you say 'yes.' Then they take you somewhere else!"

And Meredith Cooper told us, "You wait for 20-minutes and then your question is answered in like 5-seconds!"

But there IS a way to reduce that 20-minute wait and get connected to a REAL person.

National customer service expert Jordy Leiser gave us some tips via satellite. First, he says check out the web site www.gethuman.com. 

"Gethuman.com actually provides the numbers on the phone you're supposed to push to connect you to sales, technical support, etc.."

And if you're on the go, there's also a great smartphone app called Fast Customer.

"Fast Customer essentially allows you to pick the name of the company you want to reach, and they will actually have that company call you back," Leiser explained.

Lesier's company, StellaService, just finished grading thousands of retailers on their telephone systems with the help of mystery shoppers nationwide.

"They could be very large retailers and get a very large volume of calls, but it's still important for them to be customer-centric," Leiser said.

Here are the top ten companies withe SHORTEST hold times. All came in under 30-seconds.

So which retailers had the LONGEST hold times? Here are the bottom ten:

WEB EXTRAS:

StellaService also tested retailers on the amount of time it took them to respond to customer emails. Here are the fastest responders:

And here are the retailers that too the longest:

For more information about StellaService, log on to www.stellaservice.com.

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