September 23, 1968, Neenah-Menasha Daily Northwestern
Remember when this was a big deal? Who'd have ever thought that this would replace the dial? Technology is always evolving and the outgrowth of this was the creation of phone "trees" which made the most of this new advance. A phone tree is an automated telephone information system that speaks to the caller with a combination of fixed-voice menus in real time. The caller then responds by pressing the phone keys which register information or route their call based on the programmed responses. You know the routine...dial 1 for sales, dial 2 for billing, dial 3 to speak to an agent, etc. Later, it evolved even further into the caller just speaking words or short phrases, so pushing the keys wasn't even necessary anymore. After eliminating human interaction as much as possible for these businesses' answering systems, there was no turning back, despite the persistent recordings that tell you that "your call is valuable to us" and "we value your patronage."
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