Getting a Person on the Phone

Most of the time I just punch random buttons or hit the zero key over and over until the switchboard malfuntions or something and hooks me up with an operator.

Also, what's great is when you have to punch in all sorts of info using your keypad; you know, to get you to the right location. And when you do finally get someone, what's the first thing they ask you? That's right, they ask for all the infomation you just spent fifteen horrifying minutes entering. You know, to confirm.

Bloody fantastic.

Speaking as someone who works in the call center industry (and for one of the companies with a toll-free number in that database) I understand this, really I do. Many companies simply have no clue as to how to properly utilize voice-response technologies and as a result create phone menus and VR configurations that are confusing and well-nigh useless. Other companies attempt to use VR in applications for which VR should never be used (complex inquiries, like determining insurance coverage)

At the same time, however, VR is (should be) a cost-effective and efficient solution to rising human capital costs, not to mention the tedium associated with handling the types of inquiries that can be handled by programming alone. When all you want is the balance on your credit card account, do you really need to talk to a person to get it?

Given that finding your way to that point can often be problematic, I understand why some people simply give up and try to find a human voice. The problem is, of course, that by providing the information to help those individuals, others who simply prefer to speak to a human being rather than a machine are also given an easy route to find one. In the end, that results in increased costs to the company and to consumers as well.

Add to that the fact that most, if not all, companies that employ toll-free numbers usually have multiple ones to allow segregation of calls for handling purposes (credit vs. customer service, etc). Calling on any particular number and following the directions to get a person won't necessarily get the caller to where they actually need to be. This ties up an agent unnecessarily and results, again, in higher costs to the company and ultimately the consumer.

So what's the answer? Personally, I think that it's to at least try and use the system when possible, but if it's too confusing, opt for the agent and let them know why.

And chrisberez is right: Computer telephony integration (CTI) has been around for what, a decade at least? Why there are companies that still refuse to use it is a mystery to me...

Man, the worst was iomega.

A one page pamphlet for a "manual", virtually no acknowledgement of the product on the website or tech support system, 15 minutes through the phone maze of useless information, finally the dim hope that you can talk to a person, and then:

"We're sorry, all our customer service representatives are unavailable right now. Goodbye."

AND THEN IT HANGS UP ON YOU!!!! No hold, no wait, no service hours to call back.

I can understand Bill's point of view, but in reality, the phone "firewall" system is designed to piss you off and get you to hang up. This is also true for the first one or two people you finally get on the line; they have no authority to help you with any problem, they repeatedly ask for the same redundant information in an attempt to get you off the line. When you do get a person on line, and if you have a legitimate problem, ask to talk to a supervisor right off the bat. Keeping costs down is fine, but if you have good customer service, this will be a moot point as you will get more long term customers who will stay with your company.

I used to work for Dell Computers in phone technical support on the night shift. We took all the calls from all the different 800 numbers that during the day went to departments dedicated to supporting just that one product. We got server calls, laptop calls, workstation calls, you name it.

One night I picked up a call and saw from my little LCD display that the customer had been on hold for something like two and a half hours (not unusual) and that he had called in on our Latitude (laptop) support line. During the entire time on hold, of course, he had to sit through the endlessly looping "We at Dell Computers value your call, and a computer support technician will be with you as soon as possible!"

So finally the call rolls onto my phone, and I say "Thanks for calling Dell Computers, my name is Jeff, how may I help you?" "Um, yeah," he says in a husky voice, "are there, um, any girls there?" Nonplussed, I looked around the cube farm. The night shift in computer technical support in the mid-80's was not exactly Chick Country, you know? "Well, yes, there's one, but she's on the phone right now. I'm sure I could help you, what's the problem?" But he just hung up.

Weird, I thought. Why wait all that time and then hang up when you finally get someone? I mentioned it to a buddy of mine in the daytime Latitude queue the next morning and he laughed until he almost peed in his pants. "Dude," he said, catching his breath, "if you swap the last two digits of the Latitude support number you get a phone sex line! That's why he wanted to talk to a girl, he thought you were porn!"

I had to wash my phone down with anti-bacterial soap that night, I felt so dirty. Although looking back on it, I wish I'd had the presence of mind to ask him for his credit card number. Anyone horny enough to sit through two hours of a recorded "This is Dell Computers" message on the chance he'd get to talk to a girl is someone who I could make a lot of money from!

The moral of the story for this thread is, no matter what you try to tell people in an automated phone system, some of them aren't going to listen no matter what. Even with the strongest possible motivation.

I heard a story on NPR some time ago about the implementation of riled-up detection in automated phone systems. Since then when I want a live person I start cursing angrily into the phone. It almost always works.

And really, I almost always want a live operator. If it were something I could do through an automated system I would have done it on the website. Yes, Unaccompanied Minor procedures on all airlines, I'm looking at you.

I can understand Bill's point of view, but in reality, the phone "firewall" system is designed to piss you off and get you to hang up.

I really can understand why you feel this way, but it's simply not true, at least not for the majority of companies with whom I have direct experience. And for the rest, I have a difficult time believing that any company competing for customers in the marketplace would truly find it in their best interests NOT to service their customers.

I've worked directly for three companies and indirectly with a half-dozen more (in a consulting capacity) and for all of these companies I was involved at some level in actively working to improve the functionality and ease-of-use of VR systems. Companies that employ this technology are trying to improve customer service (increase efficiency) and lower cost. Granted, many of them (perhaps most) aren't implementing the most effective or friendly VR systems possible, but to argue that poorly constructed VR systems are a strategy pursued by companies to "piss off" consumers just doesn't fit my experience or the reality of doing business in today's marketplace. If you don't serve your customers, someone else will...

Oh, and asking for a supervisor right off the bat is usually an unproductive strategy. Many supervisors and managers in call centers have management expertise, but have either forgotten or never knew how to actually do the job the agent does. 8 times out of 10, the supervisor will have to delegate your issue right back to the person who initially handled your call because they're actually incapable of solving it themselves!

Bill Snedden said:

8 times out of 10, the supervisor will have to delegate your issue right back to the person who initially handled your call because they're actually incapable of solving it themselves!

But they will punt it back to the rep with the instruction "Do whatever the customer wants to make them not bother me any more." The first person on the phone generally is empowered to do exactly one thing, and that's to say "no" to you in as many ways as they can come up with. Their manager's job, meanwhile, is to not be bothered at all while they're playing Tetris and visiting porn sites during their shift. Should a customer penetrate the "Phase IV Consumer Avoidance Force Field" around the manager, they will do everything in their power to make that person go away.

Hence they kick it back to the schlub on the front line, telling them to abandon what they were told earlier that day was "the policy" and instead make the customer happy.

Such is the perspective from the little guy who used to be on the front lines. And who reads "Dilbert" and finds it eerily prescient about what really happens in corporate America.

My biggest complaint is VR phone-menu systems that force me to shout information into the phone, which always feels silly even when there's no one to hear me. I work in Lower Cubeville, and I'm sure none of my office-mates need to hear me shouting "Yes...no...I don't know...forty-two...billing question..." Even worse is when I have to say a password or account number loud enough for all my colleagues to hear. The whole thing is both demeaning ("If you don't know the billing number, say 'I'm fucking clueless!' ... I'm sorry, I didn't hear your response...") and a bit of a security risk.

We don't need Genuine People Personalities, we just need answers to questions.

As someone who works with an IVR system, it amazes me that people will expect the system to work perfectly if they are:
- talking on their mobile phone while driving through a tunnel with the windows down during the time an eighteen-wheeler passes them.
- mumble incomprehensibly
- speak softer than a unicorn passing gas.

If a real human wouldn't be able to understand you, how can you expect an automated system to do so? Enunciate and speak clearly, and most of your problems will go away.

Luckily, we've not made it into the gethuman database, and we are unlikely to do so, since all of our exception paths have been closed. Still, we manage a "very satisfied" rating in our Gallup polls most of the time, so we must be doing something correctly.

Amhorach said:

As someone who works with an IVR system, it amazes me that people will expect the system to work perfectly if they are...

"Our systems are perfect. It's the USERS who are buggy!"
-- untold millions of software & hardware developers

I had some friends that were students from Hong Kong, and learned that when confronted with a phone system where you said numbers (with your voice, as opposed to punching them in), they would mumble into the phone. The computer couldn't understand them, and would transfer them over to an operator.

I thought they were pretty smart for figuring it out.