A brief history of putting computers between customers and customer service

Does anyone remember when businesses first used auto attendants? I'll give you a clue: It's been more than 35 years since they were first introduced. With auto attendants, instead of getting a live person, a caller is greeted with a recording and must navigate through numeric options based on the department trying to be reached or the issue about which he or she is calling. The larger a given organization is, the more complex the labyrinth, and the more frustrated the caller becomes. 

In the 1990s we got the IVR (Interactive Voice Response), a technology that allows a computer to interact with humans through the use of voice and DTMF tones input via keypad. With IVR, the caller needs to input his or her account number, address, etc., and is then (hopefully) routed correctly to the agent who can best help with the call. The problem is that for a long time it seemed most organizations collected this information from callers only to have an agent ask the exact same questions!