Phone menu practice: a pretend phone line to press the keys on

Recorded choices on a real phone line

• Many lines answer with a recording that lists choices and gives each one a key. Some people call it a phone menu or a phone tree. Lines differ a great deal; what follows is how it often goes, not how any one line works.
• The whole list can be heard before pressing. The choice that fits may be the last one said. Many lines say the list again if no key is pressed, or name a key that repeats it.
• The keys hide on many smartphones during a call. There is usually a button on the call screen, often with the word “Keypad” or a small grid of dots, that brings them back.
• Star and pound. The star key (*) is at the bottom left and the pound key (#) is at the bottom right. Some people call the pound key hash or the number sign. Lines often use pound to mean “that is the whole number”.
• Numbers are typed with the keys. A line may ask for a member or account number, a birth date or a phone number. Having the card or the letter in hand before dialing means not having to hunt for it while a recording waits.
• A date is often asked for as eight digits: two for the month, two for the day, four for the year, so that March 7, 1968 is 03071968. A line usually says the order it wants; some want another order.
• Some lines listen for words instead of keys (“Say ‘billing’”). Some of those also take keys, and some do not hear well in a noisy room.
• Getting to a person. Many lists end with a key for that, often 0. Some lines do not offer it in the first list, and on some lines pressing 0 does nothing or starts the list again. A choice like “for anything else” sometimes leads to a person.
• Waiting on hold. There is often music, a recorded voice now and then, or silence. Hanging up usually loses the place in line. Some lines offer to call back instead of making the caller wait.
• A recording may say the call is recorded, or name a website, before the choices begin. Nothing needs to be pressed for those.
• A slip is seldom the end. A key that was not the one usually leads to a list with a way back, or to a person who can pass the call on. Hanging up and calling again is always possible, at the cost of the wait.
• A call you did not make is another matter. Everything here is about calling a number you looked up yourself. A recording that calls you and asks for a key press, a code or a card number is something to be careful with: Is this a scam?

How the lessons work

• The pretend phone is the dark box. The white part at its top shows what the line is saying, in words that stay on the screen. On a real call the words are heard once and are gone; here they wait.
• “Hear it” says those words aloud with a voice stored on your device, when the browser has one in this page’s language. When it has none, the button is not shown. It never uses a voice that works over the internet.
• The twelve keys are pressed with a mouse, a finger, or the Tab and Enter keys. While the pretend phone is in use, the number keys of a real keyboard, and * and #, press them too.
• The yellow line under the phone says what the last key did, and what the line is waiting for.
• A key the step is not after changes nothing: the line stays at the same choices and the yellow line says what that key was for. A real line would go on to that choice.
• The pretend card shows a made-up member number, date of birth and phone number, in the lessons that need them. The phone number begins with 555, like the ones in films.
• “Keep waiting” stands for waiting on hold. There is no clock: each press moves the pretend call one place up the line.
• “Hang up” in the middle of a step ends the pretend call and puts the step back at its start, as a real call would have to begin again.
• “Next step” answers only when the step is done. Until then it is gray. On the last step of a lesson it says “Finish the lesson”.
• The page waits. There is no countdown, and nothing is timed or counted. “Start this lesson again” asks for other choices and other numbers.

Every time the page is built, a program makes 28,000 lessons, half in English and half in Spanish, and walks through their 72,000 steps, pressing the keys itself: that every list gives each choice a key of its own, that the key a step is after is one the line names, that no step is done before it begins, that the right keys in order end the step, that every other key leaves the line where it is, that a number with a digit missing or a digit too many is not taken, that hanging up puts the step back at its start, and that both languages ask for the same keys.

What this page does not do

• It makes no call and cannot dial. To get ready for what to say once a person answers, there is Call script.
• It is not any real line. The clinic, the office and the power company are made up, and a real line’s choices, keys and order will be different. It does not know how to reach a person on any real line.
• It shows the words; a real line only says them. Holding a list in mind while it is spoken is harder than reading it, and this page cannot fully practice that. “Hear it” comes closer, where it shows.
• It does not listen. Lines that ask the caller to speak are not practiced here, and the page never asks for the microphone.
• It has not been heard by us. A program tried the page with a mouse and a keyboard in one browser, which had no voice in it, so “Hear it” has not been tried at all. It has not been tried on a touch screen, with a screen reader, a switch or an eye tracker.
• It does not practice a TTY, a relay service or a video phone, and it says nothing about what any call costs.
• It keeps no record of lessons done, gives no certificate and makes no promise about how any real call will go.