Is there anything as frustrating as trying to reach a real person when you call a company? I called the support number for my Wi-Fi router last week, and spent about 10 minutes pushing buttons. (Fortunately it wasn’t one of those voice-activated systems, which can make for lots of fun in the airport.) Once the system gave up and told me I could talk to a person was when the real wait started.

Proving that humans will always fight back against machines that get in our way, some websites (i.e. www.gethuman.com) publish “cheat” codes online for the telephone systems of some big companies. Lifehacker recently announced that Fonolo, an online phone tool for getting past all the prompts, is now open for public beta.

You can tell a lot about the company you are dealing with just by the experience you have during the first 60 seconds after dialing their number. If your call is answered by a person, at least during business hours, that’s a really good sign. If that person happens to be located in the company’s offices and is “conversational” rather than transactional, that’s an even better sign. A simple test for this would be to ask the answerer where he/she is, and how the weather there is. If she skips the question and asks how to direct your call, you’re in for a painful experience with the company. If she says she’s in Minneapolis and it’s unusually warm and sunny, you’re likely to enjoy your relationship with the company.

As Seth Godin says in his recent post, you have the choice whether or not to answer the phone. At TrackVia, we’ve made the choice to answer the phone and have a conversation with you.