Ever called a big company to ask a little question only to have your call answered by a recording that prompts you to more recordings — none of which leads to an answer or allows you to speak to a real person?

This situation frustrated Boston entrepreneur and consumer advocate Paul English and challenged him to outwit the recordings and reach a human before blowing his top. English, who already headed a successful online travel business called Kayak.com and had his own blog, first noted his findings on his blog for each company’s phone system that he managed to beat. The list grew longer as visitors to his site offered their horror stories and revealed their secrets to reaching a live person.

“The response was so great, it grew to where he created ‘GetHuman.com’ in January 2005,” said Lorna Rankin, the director of the site’s current 500-company database. It features an alphabetized list of company names, a letter grade reflecting their level of customer service, their phone number and directions on how to get to a human being as soon as possible.

“One of the principal features of the site is the 500 companies that are most commonly called by consumers,” Rankin said. Although the list is limited to that number, consumers are welcome to request information about smaller companies and express their exasperation with companies not on the list. “We get more than a million users a month on our site,” Rankin said.

GetHuman.com worked with many large companies to set 10 standards of service that should be offered to every caller. Based on those standards, GetHuman.com began grading the 500 companies in November.

“We went through an extensive testing procedure,” Rankin said. “We had volunteers, who called the companies to see how they were doing against the standards. About 85 percent of the companies received ‘F’s.’ There were major companies that did do well, so there’s no reason why other companies can’t do better.”

JUST PRESS ZERO

For instance, the first company on the list is AAA (American Automobile Association). This organization got an “F” for customer service. The instructions for getting to a human on the GetHuman.com database is succinct: “Press 0 at each prompt, ignoring messages.”

Some routes to humans are more circuitous. To access a human at the credit reporting company, Experian, which also rated an F for customer service, one must “Say ‘yes;’ enter report #; enter Social Security #; say ‘yes;’ say ‘agent;’ then ‘yes’ to confirm prompts thereafter.”

Only nine companies, out of the 500 on the database, earned an “A” customer-service rating and actually have humans that answer each call: Hertz Rent-A-Car, Commerce Bank, Dillard’s, Land’s End, L.L. Bean, Comfort Inn, Day’s Inn, Hyatt Corp. and Walt Disney World.

Among the worst companies on the list was America Online. GetHuman.com flunked it for a laundry list of reasons: not allowing callers to reach a human; not offering estimated wait time or the option for the company to call back; not entering or passing on information to a representative; not adhering to core principles, pushing callers to a Web site; having a verbose prompt; making callers listen to an announcement about a new product; having a lengthy, complicated menu tree; asking redundant yes or no questions; disconnecting if errors are perceived; asking callers if they want to speak to a representative about free service, then stating that they don’t offer live support for free service.

DISHONOR ROLL

The “F” companies run the gamut of America’s top businesses and includes auto makers, car rental companies, credit card companies, store credit cards, banks, computer companies, mobile phone companies and airlines.

Rankin had her own bad experience with the Dell computer company. When she called to ask a question, she “had to get down on my knees under my desk in order to enter the computer’s code number,” no easy feat considering Rankin was eight months pregnant.

Surprisingly, government offices fared no better. All had failing grades except the White House and the FBI, which were rated “B.”

Rankin pointed out that people with hearing problems are at a special disadvantage.

“My dad is hard of hearing and the automatic voice will ask him what he wants to do. He can’t hear the question and when he doesn’t respond, he gets hung up on,” Rankin said.

“Companies tell me to make the call for him, but he’s intelligent and doesn’t want someone to make the call for him. The same thing happens to people with speech impediments and people calling with a lot of noise in the background.”

Rankin said even when a live operator answers, there still can be problems. Employees at manned call centers may not be well-trained or well-versed in the product and may only be able to answer the simplest questions.

“Unfortunately, customer service reps take the brunt of a customer’s frustration,” said Rankin, adding that a caller’s patience is strained with every transfer.

“When the customer has to jump through hoops before getting a human, their frustration level rises. If they could just get to a customer service rep before they’re angry, the conversation would go a lot better.”

FOREIGN VOICES

One of the biggest complaints GetHuman.com hears is about companies that outsource their customer service function to foreign call centers.

“This is fine if they’re going to be able to provide knowledgeable service and be able to communicate well,” Rankin said. “Many of them have heavy accents and are given scripts to read. If you ask a question that’s not on the script, they’ll just keep reading the script.

“One way to deal with this is to ask for a tier-two supervisor, who is based in the U.S.,” she said. “Just say, ‘I’m not understanding and I want you to connect me to someone in the U.S.’ That’s something we should be expressing to these companies. Consumers should not have to jump through hoops to get the service they need.”

GetHuman.com is staffed by one part-time employee and 20 volunteers, who make test calls to companies on the database on a regular basis to keep its information current. Some companies change their systems when callers figure out how to avoid prompts.

“Some companies are more challenging than others. Columbia House (a company that sells books and CDs by mail) periodically changes their system, so we rely on our volunteers to keep up with the changes,” Rankin said.

The bottom line is that, no matter what action you take with some companies, you may never reach a human.

“Many companies don’t want customers to get to a human,” Rankin said. “If they’re going to treat their customers that way, consumers should tell them they’re going to take their money elsewhere. Let them know you’re unhappy.”

Donna Vavala writes for the News Herald in Panama City, Fla. E-mail her at dvavala@pcnh.com

On the Web

GetHuman’s database with grades and tips to get past recordings is at http://www.gethuman.com/us/

The ‘A’ list

Only nine of 500 companies in GetHuman.com’s database have humans answering each call. They are Hertz Rent-A-Car, Commerce Bank, Dillard’s, Land’s End, L.L. Bean, Comfort Inn, Day’s Inn, Hyatt Corp. and Walt Disney World.

The ‘F’ list

Companies that failed to meet GetHuman’s standards include automakers, car rental companies, credit card companies, stores with credit cards, banks, computer companies, mobile phone companies and airlines. All government offices flunked except the White House and the FBI.