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Why Do Companies Stick with Voice Menus?
eliot1785 asks: "We've all had to put up with this at one point or another — you call a company for customer service or tech support, and rather than getting traditional touch-pad menu options, you encounter an annoying system that wants you to 'just say' how it can help you. Invariably, the system fails to understand your input, or picks up background noise or coughs as intended inputs. After a few failures, you have to press '0' to speak with an operator. Why do companies think that customers like these voice menu systems? Is there any research to suggest that they do, or are companies simply embracing the systems because they are new technology? More importantly, when will they realize that the systems don't work and go back to the traditional touch-pad menu option systems?"
It is obvious. Companies DON'T want you to contact them. They want self-service or no service. They can give the sorry illusion of TRYING to help you by offering phone systems. In reality, they hope you give up. Service costs money. They'd rather have high maintenance indivduals go to another company and be a burned to them.
And in reality, customers flock to the low cost provider. Serves them right when they get what thy paid for.
See my journal for slashdot ID's by year. Mine created in 2005. http://slashdot.org/journal/289875/slashdot-ids-by-year
Personally, I haven't had any real trouble using the voice interaction services that my cable company provides. I do try to call from a quiet spot though, and do tend to have to speak more clearly and loudly than I do to the service rep that I eventually get.
Surveys have been done that show more people get more pissed off about being transferred than they do for having to sit through a menu before they speak to someone. Automated information available on many can save the customers time, which is another reason they are so popular.
They aren't specifically for driving people away. They exist to reduce teh need for them to speak to someone in the first place, and if that fails, to help ensure they speak to the right person right away.
IIRC, the AMTRAK system was recently praised on CBS News as being the "most user friendly" system. There was a recent coneference/expo of voice system vendors and apparently the most-desired system was the one that AMTRAK used or ones that could copy what AMTRAK does.
I had an AI prof who used to work on these kinds of systems at Lucent. He told us that one of the usability bits they ran into was trying to detect when the AI was in over its head. Apparently, swearing proved to be a good indicator. So if you ever want to bypass the machine, just say "earmuffs" to your kids and start spewing profanity into the phone. I've never tried it myself, but if nothing else, I imagine it would be somewhat satisfying as a last resort.
I'm not always in my nice private home when I want to deal with these things. So I'm supposed to say my "sixteen digit account number" out loud in the fucking airport, train station, office, or whatever? I don't think so. Of course the one's that ask you to punch it in alwas give to some idiot that asks for it again anyway. You can't win.
The only two words I say are "Agent" and "Operator." Grumble, grumble, grumble. Someone else already posted the gethuman database link It's a lifesaver.
Some mornings it's hardly worth chewing through the restraints to get out of bed.
You might get modded funny, but I'd give it a +1 informative.
After moving last month I navigated quite a number of these systems, ranging from Not Completely Infuriating to Horrible. (Yes, I enunciate clearly, you smart asses)
After the sixth time the electric company's system misunderstood me I said "Fuck you!" very clearly to which it responded with "I thought I heard you say you'd like to talk to an operator. Please wait while we connect you."
Subsequent use of that colorful phrase gave me an operator in about 3/4 of the voice menus I tried.
I work in the industry...
First, the reason why companies are attached to this is that a successful transaction is cheaper then a human transaction, period. In most cases 100x cheaper (even if it is sent to India). So even if only 10-20% of people use it, then it often pays for itself easily.
Of course the problem is that a lot of companies don't spend enough time (and therefore money) in making the systems work well. We often try to get containment (having someone do a full transaction in a voice system) to get above 60%. If we can do that, then we are doing well. That of course isn't the easiest thing to do. If you are good at it, there are a lot of tools to analyze what people are saying and how to respond, because invariably you will get it wrong at some point or another.
I get super frustrated myself when companies do stupid things. You have to be very careful with "speak anything" sort of interfaces. This is often called "open speech" and I still don't think the technology is quite there yet. It is much better to go with a "directed dialog" interface that give you 3-4 choices that are easy to understand.
Another thing that a lot of companies don't think about is integrating the self service system with a human being. Even if the technology is brilliant, there are going to be certain things that can't be done in the automated system. Most companies simply transfer the calls, and if you get lucky, your account number might travel with the call. Personally I like to focus on making a robust sort of integration, so that if you get you get 1/2 way through something and have to speak to a human, that human is given all the information about your transaction, so you don't have to start over and can pick up right where you left off.
D.O.U.O.S.V.A.V.V.M.