We’ve all been there. Something goes wrong, so you call customer service. What answers is a bizarre, arcane mess of an answering machine where you have to puzzle out exactly how company x categorizes customer issues when all you want is to talk to a human being. Saying “Complaint” cuts through all of that, but you might need to wait on hold for a bit. Just make sure you’re nice to the person on the other end.
So, I work in the call center industry, and sometimes this is true. I’ve spoken to hundreds of companies over the years about how they do their IVR (the thing you hear before talking to a person).
If the IVR is speech enabled and asks an open ended question like “how can I help you”, there’s likely an option to say agent/representative/supervisor
If you get a list of options, there’s likely a hidden option to reach an agent, but what you press will vary by company (typically 9, 0, or *) and there’s no guarantee you’ll get there any faster. It might actually be slower, because you are likely to be put into a “catch all” group and might even be more likely to require getting transferred.
Random tip, but # is commonly used as a terminator when typing digits. So if you’re typing your date of birth, CC info, or whatever, press # and you won’t have to wait the extra few seconds for it to “decide” if you’re done. I also press it if I fat finger some digits and need to start over quicker.
The system we deploy (Amazon Connect) is used by the likes of Intuit, Delta Airlines, Capital One, etc. though my company didn’t deploy any of those in particular.