If customer-service menus become too complicated, try pressing "0" or saying "agent" to be connected to a representative.
Or go online and chat live with a person. At www.landsend.com, the text-based chat feature lets customers question the catalog retailer about their order or inquire about products.
For more complex problems, it's worth signing up for e-mail support. When we couldn't get through to Microsoft by phone with a technical question, we shot off an e-mail message and got a response within 24 hours.