“The commercial world, then, treats us like celebrities – “Because you’re worth it,” it says. It flatters and kowtows to us and keeps on doing so right up until the moment when we hand over our credit-card details. Then we are cast aside and condemned to a purgatory of being held in queue on a customer service line for all eternity. What fools we are.” – How To Be Free, Tom Hodgkinson.
I was reading this and couldn’t help thinking how true it was when it comes to the vast majority of businesses today. Perhaps the most notorious device that exemplifies the implicit belief that the customer’s time is worth less than the company’s time are the automated answering systems. We all know them: “For Sales, press 1…for Billing press 2…” and so on ad nauseum. Now, whoever claims that this system is primarily for the customer’s benefit is a scoundrel – it is nothing but an infernal contraption by which your patience is tested by the narration of numbers in exchange for some benefit to the companies that institute it. Having a viewing of Network fresh in my mind, I believe it is time we shout with one voice: “I am mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore!”
So, everyone who is SICK AND TIRED of automated call answering systems, leave a comment that says: “Press 1″ followed by the company that you’d like to REMOVE their automated call answering systems.
We’ll then send those comments to the companies listed and demand they remove that infernal contraption and give its job to a human instead. That way we’ll create jobs for people as well as give an end to our telephonic woes.
I also propose we make a badge for all companies that satisfy two criteria:
1. They have Humans answering the phone.
2. They do not put you on hold for *more than 30 seconds*.
So to all designers out there send me your proposed badge in a small jpg, and I will post a blog with all the proposed designs and have people vote on which one would best represent our mission.
And a small piece of advice to companies with a big volume of calls:
1. Find out what the majority of callers want. Let’s say most people call for billing questions.
2. Direct ALL calls to the billing department. This way most callers will automatically find themselves where they want to be with zero hassle.
3. The callers that did not call for billing questions can easily be re-directed to the relevant departments by the touch of a button.
4. Perform the statistics as to what most callers want every month so that you change the direction of all calls accordingly. If your company launches a campaign for a new product and everybody is calling to find out about it, it would be stupid to have them directed to the billing department just because the stats showed that 6 months ago the volume of calls went to billing questions. In short, adapt to caller demand regularly.
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
In theory, you are right. But in practice it does not work. Have you talked lately to the humans who answer phones? The average machine is more intelligent, better organized, politer, and speaks and comprehends better English.
I’ve worked in a call center before, for quite a while actually for Rogers.
It was the worst part of my life and I ended up quitting because of how much stress it caused. do you have ANY idea how many horrible people I have phoning in just to yell at me? so I’m sorry I put you on hold for a minute so I could have a short mental breakdown before coming back to you.
try working in a call center before you start judging the people that work there.