How not to answer a telephone
Companies pay big bucks to be advised on The Right Way to do things, and this is what their genius consultants come up with:
Hello. You have called...
No, really? I would never have guessed that lifting the handset and punching the numbers might one day lead to calling someone. Lucky we have consultants to advise us, huh? Telling me the glaringly obvious insults my intelligence. When it's an automated phone service that I have to use frequently, it's more than annoying. When I'm paying paying by the second to listen for the fifth time to your sing-song, you are placing your own lives in danger. Why not skip the BS? Instead of
Hello, you have reached the offices of Borkware, the friendly software company. Please listen to the following options and press the corresponding number to indicate your selection. If you know the option or extension you want, you can dial ahead at any time. Please note that calls may be monitored for training and quality control purposes. Please press 1 to be switched through to our customer service department operator...[more options]"
how about
Borkware. Press 1 for Customer Service...[more options]...Dial-ahead is supported. Check our website for dial-ahead sequences.
Other pearls of brilliance include things like this
Thank you for calling Borkware, the number-one specialist in bork management software.
Spare me the folly of marketroids. It is utterly meaningless to be thanked by a machine. Even when a live person speaks, it's still without meaning, because the idea isn't the speaker's. Worse, this transparent attempt at emotional manipulation could only work if I were thick as two short planks. So either Borkware thinks I'm thick as two short planks, or Borkware does not give a damn about me and is going through the motions out of habit. Either way, it's a customer relations disaster. Then there's the ever popular
[megacorp] values your call [blah blah] Please continue to hold.
Pity they don't value my time.