According to blogger Paul English, the better way is to dial 7-3-2. I called the Postal Service back and tried it, and got to a "speak to a customer service representative" option in two quick moves. I don't know if it actually worked or if I just confounded the system, but I got my operator.

Mr. English's IVR cheat sheet, found on his blog, lists shortcuts to reach operators at the call centers of 108 different businesses. English, the founder of a cheap-fare travel search engine called Kayak.com, said it started with ten companies that he found particularly annoying, and grew to its current state with some volunteer help.

English and the IVR cheat-sheet were recently profiled in the Boston Globe. According to the article, it isn't easy for Mr. English to keep up with changes companies make to their systems. ''I hope companies eventually respond with 'Oh my God, I didn't realize how painful we made it for people,'" he told the Globe. ''I hope it's a wake-up call."

He isn't opposed to IVRs (he lists a link in another part of his website to TellMe's "cool IVR system" for traffic, weather, and sports info), but he does think there ought to be a universal standard "0" code to reach an operator. Many of the companies on his list already use "0," including American Express, Western Union, Walgreens, and his own company, Kayak.com.

As we all know, IVRs are great for handling quick questions, like 'what are your hours?' and some of the most predictable questions like 'is my flight on time?' and 'what's my balance?' These questions are what IVRs were invented for. They save time and money for both customer and corporation by streamlining the responses to common queries. But what about complicated questions? And some people just don't want to talk to the automated system. Don't companies risk alienating them?

In an e-mail interview I did with customer loyalty consultant Jill Griffin (our keynote speaker for the upcoming Austin demo), she cited this exact situation as an easily correctable example of systemic negligence: "The inability of an airline customer calling the 1-800 line, for example, to push “0” to opt out of an automated voice response system and connect with a live operator can damage relations with far more customers than that airline’s isolated incident of poor service."

The Boston Globe spoke to a few experts, including Nuance Communications' Peter Mahoney, who thought IVRs would gain more public acceptance as time went on, comparing the situation to the shift from bank tellers to ATMs. I don't like this comparison. It makes limited sense. IVRs have been around for a long time. The problem isn't that we aren't used to them yet. To continue with the bank example, I was using the phone to check my balance 10 years ago. That was IVR; I'm quite accustomed to them.

Mr. Mahoney may be conflating the IVR and the speech recognition systems, which are relatively new. It may still take some time for customers to get used to (read: not hate) speech recognition technology, but customers who complain about IVRs, which sometimes use speech rec, aren't complaining about the technology being bad, they're complaining about it being applied to the wrong situations.

One of the most common complaints about call centers is that the agent asks for your account information after you've already given it to the IVR system, usually by entering an account number on your phone. So why do they ask for it again? That's an IVR complaint. This isn't bad technology, but misused or under-used technology.

Another expert, Richard Shapiro of the Center for Client Retention told the Globe that an IVR system can handle a customer for 8 to 15 cents a minute. An agent in India or the Philippines could do it for 20 to 40 cents a minute, and an American agent for 65 cents to $1 a minute. Obviously it can save a business money.

Our editor Keith Dawson agrees with those ratios if not the actual numbers. But he points out that calls are different from industry to industry, and that oversimplifying the numbers is dangerous. As many of you know, when an IVR takes over the simple calls, the calls that reach agents last longer because they involve more complicated questions; you need both the IVR and the agent. They must be a coordinated package, not a quick cost-saving measure.

What's your take on automated consumer response systems? Got a success story or a challenge to share? Let me know. I got some great responses to my last blog questions -- thank you to all of you who wrote in. Keep the e-mails coming.