Okay, customization of customer service on the web is commonplace nowadays. You just enter in your zip code or whatever information they need and you get customized content. What I didn't expect is to find customization on the menus of Greyhound's customer service phone menu.
I mean, a phone menu! People hate phone menus!
We were trying to find the Greyhound location in South Lake Tahoe, so, using Thelma's cellphone, we called their 800 number which I found in the Lake Tahoe yellow pages. Somewhere in the menu, "Gracie" (the virtual travel assistant) asks what city you're coming from, and she starts to list cities in the Bay Area. If your city is in another state, you press 9 and you go through another menu to select the state, then Gracie lists some cities in that state.
Well, I didn't think much about it, until we tried again (because after choosing Reno, Nevada, Gracie gives us the location of the bus terminal in Pittsburg, Pennsylvania). The third time, I used my own cellphone. I thought I could just breeze through the menu since I had the options pretty much memorized. But, lo and behold!, the menu is different. This time, Gracie started by listing cities in Minnesota. And, when I went through the menu for the "N" states, she started with North Dakota, instead of Nevada, which she did in Thelma's cellphone. That's when I realized that Gracie customizes the menu based on the area code of the caller ID!
That was totally unexpected! But it was such a pleasant surprise, that I forgive Gracie for not knowing the difference between Reno, Nevada and Pittsburg, Pennsylvania.
* In case you're curious, we found out that Greyhound no longer goes to South Lake Tahoe, but there are other busses that go between South Lake Tahoe and Reno. We eventually found the menu option to a live customer service assistant, who gave us the address and phone number of the bus terminal in Reno.
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