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Get Out of Voice Menu Pergatory
renx99 writes "I don't know about you, but I hate calling tech support, and the worst if the wait. Paul English felt the same way and has put together a list of shortcuts on how to get to a human quickly. If enough people bypass these phone systems, maybe the big companies will finally get a clue and start providing real customer service again..."
If enough people bypass these phone systems, maybe the big companies will finally get a clue and start providing real customer service again
Or, big companies will simply introduce more sophisticated system. I think people get carried away and forget who is still behind and in control of the system.
And I do believe companies do want to provide real customer service, this whole phone system thing is merely herding clueless customers to designated areas, it's not going (and unable) to answer questions anyway, you will eventually talk to a human being.
Moreover, some companies already have their own IVR guide, for example a bank here, this is something to be encouraged.
Rock that crushes, Paper & Scissors that don't matter.
Problem is, for some companies, once you connect to a human, all you get is someone reading off a flow chart.
I wish customer service wasn't dead....
It only applies to those in the US. Maybe others should start working on lists for their own countries...
> maybe the big companies will finally get a clue and start providing real customer service again
maybe they will disable the shortcuts
Then again, maybe I'm the exception
First, PHBs will always consider tech support an expense. so they will easily cheap out and exploit the most out of the least IT monkeys. Been there :)
Voice menu cuts expenses. In addition, tech monkeys will probably not have to guide step by step the granny that doesn't know how to configure her outlook.
Now there are customers that will happily hang you on line for hours just so their problem be solved quickly; don't even think of telling the customer that the problem is somewhere else.
As long as terms and limits of service are established and understood by both parties, you'll get poor service and support jobs will always be underpaid.
I see 57005 people
Now if only they had a way to get to a human that wasn't in a call centre in India...
A return to some mythical golden age when you could call customer service and a highly qualified person would pick up the phone and solve your problem instantly, for no charge, is NOT going to happen, for reasons that should be obvious.
I don't mind automated systems, most of the time. Given the choice between waiting 10 minutes for a human to take my call, and an automated system instantly picking up, I'll take the latter. 90 percent of the time, the automated system is perfectly adequate, and a lot of times, it's better.
What I *hate* is when the system tries to hide the fact that human customer service is available. A little while ago, I needed to have FedEx recall a shipment I sent. This was not something I could do via the automated system, but the system didn't tell me how to reach an operator, nor did anything on FedEx's Web site that I could see. After fumbling around the system for 10 minutes or so, a thought occurred to me: "Hey, what happens if I hit '0'?"
This worked. A disaster was averted. Would it have killed FedEx to make it clear this choice is available?
the best way to get through to a human is to call their toll free number. They're not so interested in keeping me on hold when they're paying for it.
Not true. The cost of long distance service is very cheap:
Even if the company pays 5 cents per minute (which is very high) for toll-free service, the cost to keep someone on hold is 60 x 0.05 = $3.00 per hour. Most tech support monkeys in the US make more than that. And if you're paying 3 cents per minute, the cost is $1.80 per hour.
Tech support costs less overseas, but I don't know how much.
I work for them, and it warms my heart to see this:
:)
Amazon.com 800-201-7575 Direct to human!
So folks, you have a problem, Amazon is ready to listen...
Oddly enough swearing at the voice recognition software also helps. Telling the system at FedEx to "Give me a Damn person," will drop you a customer representative. And it feels good.
Are there any lists like this for the UK?
Rant enabled:
There is nothing I hate more than being redirected to a call centre in India or somesuch to someone who can barely understand what I say and I can barely understand what they say.
This is especially more important when i'm wanting to query a company on something complex that cannot be answered by them reading out an answer from a list of questions and answers. The moment you ask them a question that's not on their list it's headbanging against wall time as you hope to be transferred to someone in the English speaking world.
I'm not against call centres, infact curiously enough I recently got redirected to one in the USA (it may have been Canada) recently and they were able to get the answers I needed. I just hate the ones where I get redirected to a non-native English speaking country where they're reading from a script essentially.
I think the truly aggravating thing about this is that often you're on a phone line that's costing you (or the company you work for) money and the company you're calling are profiting from the call, it's actually in their best interests to get you on the line waiting longer.
While I agree that the menu-maze phone system can really suck, sometimes getting a human on the other end to redirect your call can be bad too. I've ended up in multiple call-transfer hell where I get forwarded endlessly to different parts of the company because no one even had any idea who could answer my question. New operators that drop your call are fun too after you've been on hold for 20 minutes.
In a few cases, I even prefer the menu system, for straight forward queries that I just need to provide a meter reading, or get a list of transactions. Once I know the menu route, it's quicker than dealing with a human.
W9x:Thanks for the make-work project Bill.
If they cared, would their system go something like this?
To use our superfantastic automated system press one now. Otherwise, press two or stay one the line and someone will answer shortly.
And for those humans who get calls, listen to what is asked of you and respond to that, not what you want to respond to.
I hate it when I ask if X is in, only to be transferred to their extension which gets me to their voicemail which I then hang up on because I need to know if they are in.
Lather, rinse, repeat.
all the best,
drew
http://www.ourmedia.org/node/85937
Tings - a nanowrimo 2005 CC BY-SA novel in progress
FreeMusicPush If you want to see more Free Music made, listen to Free
I agree that IVR systems are very frustrating, but I work for a company that makes it's living driving out the costs of clueless humans answering telephone calls from clueless customers. More interestingly, perhaps, I work in third-level support for my company...
The cost of having one clueless human talk to another is enormous. The cost of having a well educated and knowledgeable employee who can directly deal with said clueless caller's problems is even higher.
In fact, let's face it, if you are a highly knowledgeable employee, doing support work is not the most desireable job in the world. Who wants to deal with whiny clueless end-user's problems all day? You would have to pay a premium salary to keep these people from moving to more interesting jobs.
Are you willing to pay (a lot) more for convenient customer support? Conversely, are you willing to talk to someone from India (or whereever), who could be more knowledgeable and more able to deal with your problems, at a lower cost, albeit with a sometimes difficult accent and/or attitude?
Another option is charging people who insist on having their problem solved immediately, and allowing others, who are willing to state their problem and wait for someone to get back to them, a less expensive service.
As a previous poster mentioned, IVR systems at least allow calls to be organized and routed to knowledgeable individuals to facilitate cost efficiency. Computers can answer and route calls far more cheaply (if the system is designed well) than people can. That's why the phone company charges you for operator assisted calls.
Product and Customer Support is expensive, especially for complex hardware and software systems. Perhaps every piece of software and hardware could come with two different prices: A higher one that entitles the user to convenient, high quality customer service, for a limited period, and another that provides a cheaper product but with a lower quality of customer service. This might serve to set the customer's expectations better than the current one-price-fits-all approach.
If enough people bypass these phone systems, maybe the big companies will finally get a clue and start providing real customer service again..."
Unfortunately it is not quite that simple. I work as tech support on IVR products, and I can tell you that what this is suggesting is really just an arms race. The big companies are more than anxious to get you out of the IVR and to a real person if that's what you need. They are simply trying to avoid wasting valuable human resources as switchboard operators and dumb terminals. The problem is that, as any emerging technology, the wrinkles are still getting ironed out.
I am perfectly aware that IVRs are not new technology, but the more advanced CTI along with TTS and ASR capabilities that are growing up are making it so that it should actually be easier to get the action or info that we need more quickly. As this matures although these companies do track "0-outs" and abandons as metrics of the success of their IVR systems, they are also tracking full callflow, and they are certainly willing to listen to suggestions or even all-out complaints if they can use the data to improve service, reduce wait times (think "trunk") and more effectively use their people.
Don't just 0 out - complain!
Schrodinger's cat is either dead or really pissed off...
I had that happen the other day. I was calling Verizon about my malfunctioning cell phone but I was using my phone to call Verizon because it's free that way (and I couldn't find the 1-800 number). The tech guy asked for my number and he called me back after I got off my cell phone. We got disconnected, unfortunately, and that was the end of that entire tech support escapade.
There are times where controlling when you talk to a machine or a person is much more convenient. The worst thing is waiting on the fridge repair guy to come fix your leaky fridge, why would you want to sit next to a phone waiting for the tech people to call back? It doesn't eliminate holds and most people aren't going to want to give the support people their cell phone numbers because holding over the phone means minutes wasted.
It's a good idea, in theory...but a lot of tech support people would rather not take disgruntled phone calls in general and if they can delay that by not calling you back as soon as they should, why not?
"Curse your sudden, but inevitable betrayal!"
Well, the company is not going to care until the 5 human operators start to process account cancelation requests non-stop. Then they will either go under or open a big customer service call center in Bay Area (where else can you find people who speak without an accent but can understand every one else perfectly?).
I always genuinely need to interact with a human being. It's the company's job to know their product and mine to just use it. I am going to explain what I want in natural language and THEY can figure out which department it belongs to and what's my account number.
Well that lady who called me the "F"-word because she wanted something I couldn't give her (I don't make the rules) must have some serious bones sticking out of her.
Maybe it's not "the bones" but the fact that modern manners has gone into the toilet, and we all are too busy making excuses for it to set things right?