We’ve all been there: you’re calling a customer service line when suddenly—and with no indication of how long you’ll be waiting there—you’re put on hold.
In other cases, you have a simple question for customer service but are forced to go through a seemingly-endless chain of robot-guided questions, making you frustrated about your wasted time and leaving you no closer to the actual answer.
If you’ve ever wondered how to bypass this process entirely, TikTok user Liz (@lizthemusicmanager) has the answer.
In a video with over 676,000 views, Liz shares the hack that gets her through to customer service in less than 2 minutes “90% of the time.”
@lizthemusicmanager #stitch with @albertpco Saves so much time!! #apctok #codsquadup #glassonion #fyp #customerservice #timesavingtips #goodtoknow ♬ original sound – Liz The Music Manager
The hack? When waiting at the main menu, simply dial “0#0#0#.” From there, most companies will automatically redirect you to a real person, Liz says.
In the comment section, users thanked Liz for the tip while sharing other hacks to get connected with a real customer service operator.
“For some companies that doesn’t work, so I just start talking in gibberish so the bot is like ‘sorry I don’t understand I’ll connect you to someone,’” claimed a user.
“I just scream ‘representative’ or ‘help’ over and over,” offered another.
“I just yell obscenities at the recording and it usually bypasses the menus,” alleged a third.
“Don’t press anything and they think you have a rotary phone and you get through immediately,” suggested a further TikToker.
“I always go the Spanish route cuz I speak Spanish. super fast,” shared an additional user. “Also sometimes they speak English just fine.”
A WikiHow article on the topic also advises calling a local branch rather than the national number, dialing “*” or “#” four or more times, or saying that you want to cancel your account.
That said, some users claimed that as this trick has become more widely known, more and more companies are patching it out of their systems.
“They’ve started fixing this for a lot of places. Instead of getting an operator, it just sends you back to the directory,” stated a commenter.
“This used to work, certain places made it so you *HAVE* to wait for the automated machine to give you options and select from them,” echoed a second.
The Daily Dot reached out to Liz via email.
