"Let me get this straight"

I dialed up American Airlines recently and worked my way through their voice menu system. In the "good old days" you could press 1 for reservations, 0 for the operator, etc.

Now the intelligence level of these sytsem has "increased" but it's frankly maddening. Imagine if you walked into Starbucks and has this chat:

"I'd like a grande latte please."

"Now let me get this straight, you'd like a latte. Is that correct?"

"Yes..."

"And you'd like it in a grande size. Is that correct?"

"Yes..!"

"Ok. Let me get this straight. You want a grande latte. Is that correct?"

"Yes!!!!!"

Comments

[Michael]

I hear you! I'm a big fan of interactive voice response systems in many cases (511 traffic info being a notable example, since I was the project manager for the system in the San Francisco Bay Area) but they can be infuriating. My wife can always tell when I'm stuck in IVR hell, because my tone of voice gets very curt very quickly.

And why do I have to read out my United Mileage Plus # to the computer and then confirm it with the agent????

I love your blog--keep up the good work!