I’ve spoken before about the benefit of having real people answer the phones when someone calls your business. And I’ve been told off in the comments section, because it’s not reasonable to expect a company of a certain size to be able to handle the volume of calls they generate.

So I’ve made it a point to pay attention to the companies that offer live support, real human level service, and more. Furthermore, I have paid special attention to the companies that not only offer it, but use it in their marketing as a competitive advantage. Someone has to hold them to their promises.

In preparation for my recent trip abroad, I had the (what turned out to be pleasant) need to reach out to TD Bank. I checked out the back of my debit card and sure enough, there was a number to call for service. Then, as I looked closer, I noticed there were 2 different service lines.

Here’s what it looks like:

24-Hour WOW! Service
Real People: XXX-XXX-XXXX
Automated: XXX-XXX-XXXX

Interesting. So I called the real people line (thinking ‘why on earth would anyone call the automated’) and was immediately connected to a human. This particular human was able to answer my questions and set up my account for international travel in a matter of minutes. Thank you TD Bank.