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Curse Your Way to Live Support
EtherMonkey writes "Wired is reporting on new software developed at University of Southern California's Speech Analysis and Interpretation Laboratory. Researchers there have come up with working code to detect the frustration and anger level of callers working their way through automated attendant phone systems."The system works by analyzing not only what callers say, but also how they say it. Callers get transferred if they start to spit out expletives or if they simply sound angry.""
I read in a newspaper in the train that this technology also can be used to detect lies. A lie-meter would be shown on the telephone indicating how much the other person lies. Finally a a useful technology.
"Until you do what you believe in, how do you know whether you believe in it or not?" -- Leo Tolstoy
It sorta works, actually... I had to call Verizon support once, and they had one of those voice-recognition systems, where they ask you a bucnh of questions and you're supposed to speak the answer and then they try to figure out how to route the call. I started speaking gibberish, and I was connected to an operator within seconds.
Yes, this technology shouldn't be used to torture service reps with customers at the peak of their rage. Instead, use it to send 'em to voicemail with a special message indicating that they'll get a priority call back. That'll give them some time to cool off, and give the rep a chance to calmly gauge the priority based on customer type.
I buy a lot of stuff on the web. So, every once in a while, a company will screw up. In pursuing a remedy, I always start out pleasant and accomodating. But once they start in with typical incompentent customer service behaviour, like responding to an email with questions that were already answered in the original email, I start to respond with full-scale profanity and insults. Inevitably the profanity gets good results and usually very quickly.
In my opinion this is the stupidest way to run customer service. It encourages customers to mistreat your employees. The good companies never let the problem get to the point where profanity is needed, but I am, quite frankly, surprised at the number of companies that have such poor customer service organizations that the profanity route becomes mandatory.
By the way, I discovered this method one day after going round and round and round with a company so many times that I was completely hopeless. So I decided to vent a little steam, figuring that I was never going to get things fixed anyways and that any self-respecting person would just cut off correspondence once the profanity started. Man, was I surprised at how quickly they jumped to fix things after that, completely the opposite of what I had expected.
I tried to report dead birds to my state health department. They didn't care. They *so* didn't care. I don't think the functionary even looked up from her novel while she told me on the phone that they do not take reports of dead birds.
Now, I know from numerous public service announcements that, not only is the department supposed to take reports of dead birds, but I am required to make them. So I called the Federal CDC, to find out what was up. Naturally they directed me right back to the same State department that dismissed me earlier. I managed to complain my way up the ladder until I reached someone who at least could tell me *why* they don't take reports (legislature pulled their funding.)
So maybe West Nile Virus will break out in my area, and I will be able to go to DC with the names of the individuals who couldn't be bothered to take reports of dead birds...
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
How about a real old fashioned way: use a pulse/rotary phone?
Sometime the trick is dialing 0-0. Or *-# or some weird combo. Or, you can try dialing random extensions to get in touch with a real person who has nothing to do with your problem at all, but they'll be happy to transfer you to the correct department.
However, lately it's been sometimes happening that when I try this I get immediately disconnected.
They're catching on.
or you could just follow the options like your suppose to to get to the right department so when you do get through we dont have to transfer you all over the place.
Two weeks ago I made several calls to the automated Sears Appliance Repair system. I was trying desperately to cancel a service call I had requested. The first time I called I wandered through the maze of "Yes" and "Service Repair" and "Cancel" options only to be put on hold for 10 minutes and then be disconnected.
During the second call I lost my cool and started yelling at the damn thing. My wife came in and wondered what the hell I was doing. I was getting madder and madder. "YES!" "YES!" I SAID YES, DAMMIT!" When I finally got to the point of screaming "YES, BITCH!" the freaking thing said something to the effect of "You have selected 'Cancel' - Thank you" and hung up.
On the third call I was hotter than ever, but made sure I didn't call it a bitch.
FED-EX, on the other hand, immediately defaults to a live person on its system if it doesn't understand something. A much more gratifying experience.
My user name was a mistake. Input wasn't restricted, my bad.
Am I the only one who LIKES automated phone systems?
I hate telephones, and I'm not a big fan of people either. Usually, I'm just calling to find some bit of information - an address, hours of operation, etc. The fewer real human beings I have to talk to, the better.
As for cursing at the automated system to get a human on the phone...I spend enough time cursing at machines as it is. Besides, what if the cursing has nothing to do with the phone call? "Honey, can you turn down the f*cking television!? I'm on the godd*mn pho...oh, hello?"
You don't have to be the person you've become.
The last time I had to call Verizon repair services I was trapped in their new phone system, and my phone line was so noisy (hence the service call) that their voice recognition was not recognizing. I cursed at it a couple of times, and it asked me if I wanted to end the call. I said, "No!", and it continued.
To test it, I cursed again, and sure enough, it said sweetly, "Would you like to end this call?"
As an aside, I have had so many problems with my phone line that I now have my own personal Verizon rep, with a direct line to her office. But she seems pretty ineffective, so now I'm composing a letter to Mr. Seidenberg to see if he can get the damned line to work.
Actually, I think a form of this was used at Microsoft a while back. I remember interviewing there (when I was young and confused) and being told by the interviewer that if you enter something like "This fucking thing won't work" into the help system, it automatically gives you the number for tech support. The idea is that if you're that unhappy you should really be speaking to a liver person, not navigating through the help system. Then again, I never actually confirmed this, and apparently it's not true for word XP.
Will the general population continue to value "cheap" and "more" above all else? This will force companies to cut costs above all else. "Evil" corporations aren't successful for no reason at all.
I once heard a statistic that the profit margin from a PC was used up in one tech support call. That sounds a tad extreme, but I remember the tiny, tiny markup on computer parts from when I worked at a small family-owned computer store. When my mom worked at Koenig's Art Emporium, the manager refused to carry anything he couldn't mark up more than 40%. Aquarium stores average 50% (operation costs on livestock must be considered, but the markup is on everything). We probably would have killed for 20 in most cases. It was not uncommon to make only a few dollars on a hard drive. I suspect the situation has worsened rather than improved, and there were companies underselling us at the computer shows (usually with lesser warranties).
[Of course, being in a small shop, I was building/fixing systems while taking tech support calls, so that wasn't a big hit for us.]
WMBC freeform/independent online radio.
I once had to call SallieMae to figure out why my regular student loan payments had just suddenly increased after 4 straight years of steady decline. I dialed into their oh-so-thoughtfully designed voice mail monstrosity, and proceeded to get routed back and forth into SEVEN different voice mail sub-systems. Each time I was transferred, the new system would greet me with the classic lie, "Your call is important to us". After five minutes of trawling through this POS looking for a department that actually contained human inhabitants, I finally bellowed "HUMAN!!!!!" as loud as I could into the receiver.
Immediately, I heard a click, then lo and behold, a human voice said, "Thank you for calling SallieMae, how may I help you?"
I'm not tense. I'm just terribly, terribly, alert.
Oh, BTW, if you think I am just talking out of my ass, here is some proof of concept, so to speak.
Dell brings some support back to the US.
See, customers weren't happy with Dell's outsorced support to India, so Dell adjusted. They didn't just say "Hah, screw you customer. Take a dive off a bridge!" Dell did exactly what it should. It tried a new system to maximize profits (minimize costs, whatever), but in this case it didn't work too well. Oh well. Live, learn, correct the problems and try new ideas. But in the end they still want to make their support work for the customer, because the customer IS profit.
- I love animals. I try to eat at least one a day.
Here's a true example from my life last week:
- Register.com has put a lock on my domain and will not change my WHOIS informatin and will not unlock it so I can move to a different registrar. My domain register fees are paid up until March of 2005.
- I call Register.com. They say they have no account data on me because I registered via a 3rd party. I have to call my hosting company.
- I call my hosting company. They attempt to make the changes through their partners channel with Register.com. Register.com refuses to change the information or to unlock the domain.
- I call Register.com again. They say they can't/won't help me and to email their partner channel email.
- I email the partner channel and they say I have to go through my hosting company to make those changes.
- I go back to my hosting company and provide them with the email from Register.com in a hope that they could use that as evidence to make Register.com do their damn job!
- Register.com refuses to make the change.
Is this the way to impress you customers? What good will cussing them out do if they don't give a damn whether they help you or not? No, this scheme will only work if the company in question actually cares about customer service. Most companies see customer service as a cost center.When I worked in a record retail store, we had a policy posted above the cashier that all sales were final. Well, the thing was, if a customer came in and got mad at the counter and wouldn't leave, the manager would refund their money to get them to go out.
I always felt this was shitty - aggressive, loud, selfish people got their money back while polite, friendly, non-confrontiational people didn't. I always thought everyone should be treated the same.
On the other hand, if we wanted to reward some people and not others, why then I felt it should be the other way around - tell the assholes to get lost - call security if necessary - and give money back to people who were polite and nice about it. Geez, it might even begin to instill some politeness in some people.
Then again, I've benefitted from this. At a local art store, they have a policy to give discounts to students. One day, the cashier asked someone in front of me if they were a student, when it came to my turn, I wasn't asked and forgot to provide my student card. When I remembered, just after having paid, the cashier refused. When I asked her to phone the manager, she did so and then turned to me with a very smug look and said she couldn't do it. I left, but was so angry (at her smugness at this point), I went back in and demanded to have the manager to tell me to my face that I didn't deserve the discount. This time I got it.
I guess it is just a case of "the squeaky wheel gets the oil". It is probably not good to encourage this, though.
...the operator who those calls are transfered to.
This brings an interesting concept of "matching" callers and operators. If you match the more impatient callers with operators who are able to handle those situations well and not get flustered, I'd imagine there would be less turnover. In addition, these positions could pay higher.
Tiering customer support skill would definitely be more efficient and benefit both company and customer, in my opinion.
--Ben
"There are no such things as mutual fantasies. Yours bore us and ours offend you."
- Bill Maher
I used to have a very lengthy voicemail message (about 2 minutes and 50 seconds). It explained, in detail, every single last question someone could want answered. If they did have some other question it was likely that they didn't belong calling my department or they were confused but there was still an option to leave a voicemail and I would return the call... Using this method I had limited myself to 5 or less voicemails a day since July 2003 (I would receive anywhere between 80 and 100 calls a day)...
Now. Just last week I had to remove this message and shorten it to under a minute because some asshole complained that he did not want to wait that long for the message (and he wasn't bright enough to try * or # which nearly all voicemail systems respond to to skip the message). I was first asked to put the disclaimer that you can skip the message w/the * key... Whoever thought that up was a moron. You NEVER tell someone how to skip it or the point of the voicemail message is moot.
Phone trees are apparently never checked thoroughly. They need to be tested 100s of times by different people to make sure that no matter what a call is routed to the right place. My voicemail message was corrected 5 or 6 times to make sure that it was working 100% and that no questions would be left unanswered.
Amazingly enough no one was happy except me.
Sad world we live in.
When I called in for service, I was connected directly to a fairly knowledgable guy who had already heard the of problem (and remembered it). Once I re-explained the problem, he connected me to an engineer right away.
I am guessing that a lot of the big support operations have special groups to support specific types of customers. If you can get listed as one of those types, you are set.
However, I don't see that swearing at an automated answering program makes you a jerk. I swear at my computer all the time. If companies want to give obnoxiously irate people preferential treatment, then those people will be their customers, while the docile masses migrate to where they can stand in a queue without 'cutters' being allowed.
Eat at Joe's.
The problem is that one can be polite yet still asertive--yet for some reason or another most people only learn that to be assertive they have to be a jerk. And that's why society seems to be turning into a bunch of jerks--because no one knows how to be polite yet assertive anymore.
Back when I was a Sprint PCS swatter, Sprint rolled out their voice-recognition menu system for customer support. Since I had to call frequently on behalf of existing customers, I quickly found out the best way to get a live operator -- just say "cancel service". The system would play back a "please wait for the next representative" message that sounded a little bit depressed about the bad news, and bump the call to the top of the queue.
Classifying everyone as either 'jerk' or 'polite' is a gross oversimplification. The truth is that complaining is a fine art, and there are ways to use this art to get what you want without being a jerk.
The reason why the polite person can be overlooked is because there is no pressing need for attention. If there's a severed thumb in your soup and you sit politely and wait for the waiter to return, you aren't going to get particularly prompt service. If you scream, someone will be over to help you rather quickly. The key is to make your displeasure known in such a way that will get immediate attention but will not seem unreasonable to random bystanders. This has the added impact of public opinion - if a potential customer sees a poor effort to resolve a reasonable problem, that person could choose to do business elsewhere.
As an example, I once hated doing business with UPS. Since I have no choice but to pick up packages at the local customer counter after the first delivery attempt, I got to deal with the UPS automated phone system rather frequently. It was such a poorly implemented piece of equine excrement that a simple 'will call' request could take 15 minutes (wading through menus, entering tracking numbers multiple times, then explaining everything to a human being, who would once again request the tracking number and your name, address, phone number, etc.). I inquired about having packages automatically held for pickup after the first delivery attempt (USPS, FedEx, and Airborne all do this to some extent, and FedEx and Airborne even have same day pickup), but I was told repeatedly that this could not be done. After calmly expressing my irritation in person at the rather crowded customer counter, my packages started being held for pickup automatically and I received friendly, personalized service at the customer counter.
They have since stopped allowing automatic holding, but delivery change requests can now be processed quickly and painlessly on the web. Now that those incompetent morons in charge of the USPS have cut back my local post office's hours so much that there is no way I can go there during the week, and with FedEx closing down the office that I drive past every day and moving operations to one that is conveniently located a half hour drive through back roads from where I live (in the opposite direction of where I work), UPS has become my favorite carrier.
There are of course exceptions...
It is my understanding that ambulance officers are specifically instructed to ignore accident victims that make excessive amounts of noise. This is because if you are alive enough to yell for help then you are more likely to survive than someone who isn't yelling for help.
I wanted to return a lot of PCS phones that were bad (no analog). I worked for an IV pharmacy that delivered to peoples homes, many of them in very rural areas of Missouri, Illinois & Iowa. So having analog work on all of our phones was extremely important to us.
I had already delt with Sprints runaround (No, I do NOT have 3 frickin' weeks to get my phones replaced!) so I decided to call Samsung. No matter what option I pressed I could not get to a real live person. In disgust, I eventually gave up after an hour solid of messing with it. The next morning I called investor relations (which had already closed when I made my earlier call) and asked to speak to the president. Lo and behold, a half hour later he did call me back.
"You do know that no matter what option you press you can't get to a real live person?" CEO: "No, there should be an option..." Me:"Let's try it!" I punched another line, dialed the number and let him have at it. He couldn't get to a real live person either. You could hear him suppressing his desire to cuss. He appologized & then said "I've never had to use the phone system, when I want to get ahold of someone I have my assistant place the call and connect me when they get through..." Must be nice.
After explaining what our business did -- I had my half dozen crates of replacement phones in less than 6 hours from the time that call ended and they were already activated for me. All of them worked flawlessly as well.
If you can't get to billing, try investor relations for getting a real live person.
Freedom is merely privilege extended unless enjoyed by one and all.