When calling a business, do you ever feel like you're locked up in voice mail jail? It seems, no matter who you call these days, you get a recorded message and a seemingly endless list of options.
Finding a live operator can take a good chunk of your time, not mention your sanity! But one man may have found the solution.
Paul English has a web site that lists dozens of companies and their phone numbers, along with instructions on which buttons to push in order to get a live operator.
We put his tips to the test in the WSFA 12 newsroom. And for the most part, they worked.
At Sony for example, you just speak the word "agent" into the phone to be transferred.
And with there companies, you can simply push a series of buttons which the computer doesn't understand. The computer will then transfer you to a customer service representative.
All in all, English's web site saved us 1 to 3 minutes per call. That's 1 to 3 minutes of frustration avoided.
So who is this Paul English anyway? He's a 42-year-old software engineer from Arlington, Virginia. He says he put his cheat sheet together simply because he was tired of spending so much time on the phone. It includes more than one hundred companies.
And since it's on the web, now everybody can take advantage of it. The address is www.paulenglish.com/ivr.
Reporter: Mark Bullock
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