My daughter is turning 15 next month, and my wife and I decided it was time for her to finally get her own Smartphone. However, that also meant we would have to call AT&T to start a new line of service for her. Up until this point, we had used on-demand basic phone services for her, but we felt that 15 was a landmark year in high school, and with her good grades, she deserved to be given more responsibility.
I was elected to make the phone call and set up the service since electronics tended to be my area of specialty, so I found myself on the phone with AT&T on a Monday evening when I had some time. I honestly didn't know what I expected from the process. AT&T has a lot of customers, and they offer everything from cell phone service to internet service to cable service. Therefore, I could have easily been on the phone for a few hours and not been surprised. Although I was hopeful that wouldn't be the case, because I only had about an hour before my daughter came home.
When I called, a voice greeted me and said, "Welcome to AT&T. Tell me the number you are calling about." I put in my phone number since I assumed it wanted to look up my account, and then it said, "Please tell me what you are calling about." I replied, "I want to talk to someone about adding a new line." It then inquired, "Are you calling to add service to an existing AT&T account?" I responded yes as well.
Then it seemed to confirm what I needed by asking, "Which would you like to do, add a line, upgrade a line, or something else?" This seemed repetitive, but I said, "Add a line" again just to finish the process. Then the voice assistant stated, "Sure, what's the number on the account." This was a bit annoying because I had just said that, but I went with it again and gave my number.
The good news is that after this last request, it said, "One moment please while I handle your request. One moment, please, while I get an agent to help you." It then informed me the hold time was about five minutes, which wasn't bad, but the hold music was. It was stretchy and featured loud guitar riffs and horns. Luckily, I wasn't on hold long, and the agent who picked up was helpful.