Phone menus & bad customer service: GetHuman.com provides help

Paul English of Arlington is launching GetHuman.com today, stepping up his campaign against companies with automated voice response systems that make it difficult for customers to reach a human representative.

The new website will not only feature English's ''cheat sheet" for getting around the automated systems, which drew national attention last year, but also consumer rankings of companies, a customer service blog by English, and even ''gethuman" hats, shirts, and Teddy bears.

English said the website will be free and the merchandise will be sold at cost. English, cofounder of the travel search engine Kayak.com, has also enlisted volunteers to help edit the cheat sheet, which gives dialing instructions on how to reach a human on the customer-service lines of more than 200 companies.

"We want to change the face of customer service in the US," the gethuman website says. ''We want our calls answered promptly by humans who are friendly and knowledgeable, who are easy to understand, and who handle our calls without transferring us again and again."