Now You Can Pay Someone to Yell at Customer Service for You

A Boston-based startup called GetHuman has created a unique service to make life a little easier for anyone who dreads customer service phone calls. For $5 to $25 per call, GetHuman offers to make your customer service phone calls for you, suffering through hours of hold music, malfunctioning robots, and circuitous button-pressing so you don’t have to.

CNET reports that GetHuman began as a phone directory to help customers find phone numbers that would connect them with live customer service representatives instead of robotic operators. Though GetHuman still offers that service, they have also hired five full-time staff members who will make phone calls on your behalf. Acting as a temporary personal assistant, they’ll attempt to get you refunds, switch airplane flights, cancel your cable subscription, and more. Their website has a lengthy list of companies they are equipped to deal with, and potential customers need only choose their company and issue to get started.

Even if you’re intent on handling your customer service issues yourself, the GetHuman website provides tons of useful information about different companies’ customer service experience, from phone numbers to estimated hold times and customer service reviews.

GetHuman CEO Christian Allen told CNET that he thinks customer service phone calls often make simple issues unnecessarily complicated. "These customer service procedures have become these long obstacle courses for us," Allen told CNET. "We avoid them, we procrastinate, and in some cases we don't do them at all." GetHuman is designed to make solving minor customer service issues simple again.