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?"

Comments

Because often then work...

[CohibaVancouver]

I've had several successful interactions with these systems, most recently with United Airlines just the other day. Anecdotal, to be sure, but proves the systems have at least some worth.

Real question?

[MyLongNickName]

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.

Re:Real question?

[Moofie]

I don't mind getting what I paid for. usually, when I'm calling one of these jokers, it's because I HAVEN'T gotten what I've paid for. Hence the problem.

Pulse Dialing

[Bieeanda]

You might be surprised, but there are still a lot of people out there with their phone lines (and phones) configured for pulse-dialing/rotary instead of touch-tone. Unfortunately, speaking from personal experience, they make getting through a traditional digit-entry interface impossible.

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.

a lotta stuff comes into play

[way2trivial]

I use ivr systems all the time, I almost NEVER have them misunderstand me.

ennunciation at times helps.. pausing between #'s helps.

I know a lotta eastern europeans, they all scream bloody murder when they try...

you could always refer to http://gethuman.com/ if you just can't take it
The most popular part of the gethuman website is the gethuman database of secret phone numbers and codes to get to a human when calling a company for customer service. (See also our general tips.)

Good reasons

[BoneFlower]

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.

Re:Usually works for me

[daeg]

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.

A little story for y'all

[gnu-sucks]

I'm pretty sick this week. Having never used my insurance with a doctor before, I called in.

"Welcome to bla bla... to speak with someone regarding covered facilities press 6" ::beep::
"If your Insur-ID begins with a W, press 1" ::beep::
"If the W is followed by three numbers and a hyphen or dash, press 1" ::beep::
"Please type in your complete Insur-ID. You can enter letters by-" ::beep:beep:beep:beep:beep:beep:beep:beep:beep:bee p:beep:beep:beep:beep:beep:beep:beep:beep:beep:bee p:beep:beep::
"If this is an emergency, please hang up and dial 911." ::pause::
"Please hold." ::pause::
"Due to unusually high call volume [8am saturday], we are experiencing higher-than-usual wait time. Your expected wait time is Two. Minutes. And. Five. Seconds. Please continue to hold." ::pause::
"Thanks for using Enormous insurence inc, may I please have your date of birth, Insur-ID...."

That's as verbatim as I can remember it. Seriously. Can you imagine an elderly person trying to do this... up hill, both ways, with a rotary phone, in the snow?

skip them all

[mz001b]

A very useful site: gethuman database.

I lump the voice and keypad menus in the same boat -- I just want to talk to a
person as quick as possible.

Swear a lot

[Darth_Burrito]

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.

Re:Usually works for me

[Joe U]

Amtrak's 'Julie' is actually one of the most advanced systems out there. It rarely misses a prompt and recovers gracefully if it does. (It even works while calling from a train doing 90mph in the middle of nowhere Iowa, that's an achievement all its own)

Between their website and voice system, there is a lot going on behind the scenes. Train travel is actually pretty difficult to book trips and maintain status, it's all the stops, and the literally hundreds of possibilities you can have for one trip.

This works

[Zadaz]

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.

No good with kids in the house

[tulare]

I've got a 4-year-old who is going through that stage where the use of the phone causes instant pandemonium - she sees me on the phone, and suddenly the same child who has been ignoring me for the past half hour will do anything and everything to grab my attention. This is common at this age, apparently. A large part of the problem is that many IVR systems are programmed to hang up if they get too many invalid responses. At least with a "press 3 for billing" solution, you can let it babble for a minute while you can handle things not related to talking to a robot. I'm sure other parents can relate to the following typical conversation:

IVR Bot: "To talk to billing, say 'billing.' To get help with your connection, say 'connection.' If you'd like help with something else, say 'something else.'"
Me: "Firstname-middlename-lastname, put down that hammer, NOW!"
IVR Bot: "I'm sorry. I didn't understand what you needed. Can you please say that again?"
Me: "I said now."
IVR Bot: "I didn't quite make that out. One more time please?"
Me: "ONE... TWO..."
IVR Bot: "Thanks for calling. Goodbye!"

I work in the industry...

[Kr3m3Puff]

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.

Re:I work in the industry...

[tulare]

Haha, I used to use a similar trick with the local cable company. They provide both internet and cable TV service, but because their TV service is a sanctioned monopoly, they're required by law to have a certain average hold time for 800 calls. Not so the Internet service, where one could grow old waiting on hold. But yeah, they both used the same queue, so guess which option I chose when I had a problem with my Internet service? And the CSRs never noticed that I'd pulled a fast one (although to be honest, I was actually catching THEM in the act of pulling a fast one, and working around it).

That said, there's no justification for forcing anyone to give the account number twice. If the system can be used to route callers based upon account number, it can sure as hell pass that account number along tho the damn CSR.

That is a +10 comment.

[attemptedgoalie]

I work in tech support. I've been a part of the decision process that has watched us go from live pickup to a touchtone system to voice.

I've watched upper management decide that we need to push people to the web.

Well trained people cost money.
Poorly trained people cost less money.
Poorly trained people who you don't have to worry about accents cost even less.

But make it hard enough to get support, and the support costs become profits when support is completely unused.

Upper management has decided that the people who call support in the corporate world are not the people who buy the equipment or have buying influence.

So, piss off the techies, and they just won't call. Their company will still buy from us.

More money for the shareholder.