Non-PRO English Other General / Conversation / Greetings / Letters

Hello everyone,

A related challenge for businesses—and an extreme annoyance for consumers and complainers—is the inability to provide customer service representatives easy access to all information necessary to resolve problems.

How maddening is it when you call a company and enter your account number on your phone’s keypad, only to have to immediately repeat your number once you’re connected with a representative?

Why did they ask for the number the first time? Is this a joke? An intelligence test? I hate this. You hate this. Research proves it: 85 per-cent of consumers feel negative toward businesses that require them to provide information multiple times. That statistic causes me to think these two things: “Of course” and “Who are the 15 percent who are not bothered by this, and how do they have so much free time?”

Although I'm not sure what account number they are talking about (unless the company is a bank), the problem for me is the phrase "the first time" in "Why did they ask for the number the first time?"

Does it really mean "Why did they ask for the number in the first place?/Why did they ask for the number at all?", i.e. simply "Why did they ask for the number?"

Or do they mean "Why did they ask for the number _for_ the first time?"

Thank you.