It started with Paul English's blog, and his "IVR Cheat Sheet," a list of shortcuts to live operators through call center IVR systems.

(Although Mr. English says it started in 2002 with a Ralph Nader article that compared navigating IVRs to Soviet-style bureaucracies. To add another layer, Mr. Nader references a Wall Street Journal article from May 8, 2002 titled: "In Search of the Operator -- Firms spent Billions this year to make it hard to find one; how to reach a real person," an article which doesn't appear to be online. According to Nader, the Wall Street Journal was the first to publish a list of IVR shortcuts.)

Next was the press coverage of English and the IVR Cheat Sheet, which started with this Boston Globe article, and hit a lot of major news outlets, including the following:

• The Seattle Times. Their article appeared two days after the Globe's.

• Next, Mr. English appeared on MSNBC, interviewed by the delightful Tucker Carlson. "I'm just going to say it loud and say it proud," Carlson gushes to English, "you're my hero." MSNBC provides a free transcript and video.

• The Wall Street Journal's fortress-like website doesn't seem to allow non-subscribers access to its coverage of Paul English, but the Journal's Loretta Chao wrote about him on the 22 of November.

• Mr. English's next interview was on November 23 with NPR's Steve Inskeep. The five-minute audio segment is on the NPR site.

• English appeared on ABC's World News Tonight the same day as they NPR interview. The two minute segment, in which ABC reporter John Berman praises English for "beating [an IVR] into submission," is on the ABC site.

• The whole Cheat Sheet affair is rehashed for the British public by The Guardian on Friday the 25th of November.

• Kiplinger's has a longer article about English in which our affiliate ICMI's Brad Cleveland offers some advice.

• According to English's website, he'll be on page 194 of the December 5 issue of People magazine.

The surprisingly gleeful and long-lived press coverage prompted at least one industry rebuttal, from IVR software company Angel. They issued a press release with its own so-called cheat sheet, and took out a Google ad that turns up on the right-hand column when you search for Paul English's name.

Angel, which lists Adidas, Kellogg's, and Reebok as clients, got its own Boston Globe article on December 2, in which CEO Michael Zirngibl took a diplomatic tack with regard to the now infamous Cheat Sheet -- at least at first. Then he pointed out that English's company, an online travel search engine called Kayak.com, was losing money, so of course he can tell other companies to spend more on operators.

In his blog, Wall Street Journal tech writer Jeremy Wagstaff went through Angel's rebuttal to Paul English, line by line, disputing nearly everything, lamenting Angel's lack of links to studies (they didn't link to Paul English either, which annoyed Wagstaff), and adding a link back to English's website, the origin of all of this brouhaha, where Mr. English responds to Angel's rebuttal.

English has even started an e-mail newsletter about the Cheat Sheet, promising updates when he gets another 100 shortcuts, links to national coverage, etc. He also has a page dedicated to (only five) great customer service numbers -- like Nordstrom department stores and Southwest Airlines. His criteria? That they have a human being answer the phone.

Some in the industry are getting really heated up over this, and really defensive of IVRs. Let's not forget that even though we (call center agents, managers, vendors, and other insiders) may think this is blown out of proportion, and that civilians are being too picky or sensitive, the public is telling us what they think. And the call center's job is to connect people to institutions. As English said on ABC News, "if you're frustrated, humans want human contact. You want someone who's empathetic and can help you." There has always been a tension between service and expediency, and this case is simply another reminder that service must come first.

What I realized in absorbing this deluge of Paul English coverage is that customers feel like their relationships to companies are adversarial. They feel like companies are actively trying to keep them out, that service, even for a monthly paying customer, is an inconvenience to the company. This was certainly the sense people have gotten from amazon.com, which has been legendary for guarding their 1-800 number. They were covered twice by NPR -- once in December of 2003 and again last January. Amazon wants all of their customer interactions done via e-mail, and some customers don't like that. Don't be surprised if NPR turns this into an annual thing; I still can't find Amazon's number on their website, but English's Cheat Sheet has it.

I'd like to hear from some call centers. Do you think your center's IVR is particularly efficient, intuitive, and caller-friendly? Tell us about it. What has worked for you? What has your company stumbled over and fixed? Further, we'd love to hear your opinions about the Paul English Cheat Sheet and Angel's response.

--Harry Sheff