Being Understood

Extra: Calling Out For Service - from Voice Jail

Call anytime, but it's better to send e-mail - Yesterday, while I sat on hold long enough to tidy my entire office, the recorded greeting told me that my bank has extended its call centre support service by two hours. Nevertheless, the recording went on to suggest sending them an e-mail for faster service. The irony is that the purpose of my call was to clarify something about online banking. Hmmm. 

A friend is using the time she spends on hold to write a book - I imagine there is a statistic, somewhere, revealing that the average North American spends 1.5 months of his/her life on hold.

Would you like fries with that? - Another friend revealed today that while he was waiting for service at a technology site, the system offered him the option of waiting with or without music. I guess they didn't read the 2002 study by France's Université de Rennes showing that callers listening to music while on hold underestimate the length of time they've been waiting. Next we'll have a choice of musical styles. But will we ever reach a human being?

Poison IVR - Broadcaster/podcaster Jeff Hoyt has some interesting thoughts on yesterday's subject of interactive voice response systems that seem to be keeping customers separated from customer service reps.  You'll find his entertaining "Voice Jail" recording at www.hoytus.com/?p=21

Get Real - Calling Out For Customer Service

I have a lovely telephone company.  Through the magic of mergers, it's also my mobile phone company, my Internet service provider and (if I had a TV) my cable company. Multiple services mean multiple reasons to contact its customer service line.

And there the loveliness ends. The organization that enables me to communicate with you and the rest of the universe seems intent on preventing customers from communicating with its helpful help desk.

Place a call to the customer care line and you're connected with an interactive voice response system (IVR). In other words, a fake guy, with an incessantly cheerful recorded voice tries to guess why you're calling. Our IVR Guy has advanced beyond the "Press 1 for billing enquiries" stage and saves you the digital wear and tear of button pushing. All you have to do is speak the right words.

Pray the situation fits the options offered. Unless he hears the magic words, this poor man apologizes. "I'm sorry," he says, "I must have misunderstood. Can you repeat that please?" Welcome to Canada, where even our robots are polite.

Outwitting the robot - Since there's no officially sanctioned way to bypass IVR Guy, getting to a real person requires creativity, if not cunning.