I have called more customer service numbers than I would care to count, for a myriad of different reasons, and the automated phone system has yet to resolve a single issue. Instead, the menus are an impediment, making me feel like a mouse in a maze. I’m not even rewarded with cheese when I find the exit. Instead, I have to listen to fifteen minutes of elevator music periodically interrupted by an excessively cheerful recorded voice saying how much they appreciate my call. Then I get to speak to a real person.
I’m all for using technology to make processes more efficient and reliable, but this application has created more problems, at least from my perspective, than it has solved. I would love to call a customer service number and hear a friendly, “Hello, how may I help you?” on the other end. If companies spent more money hiring people to answer phones rather than on the menu-driven phone system, they’d be able to provide personal customer service. With the menus, they end up frustrating the very people they’re allegedly helping.
I recently discovered a way to reduce the pain associated with phone menus, at least after the first call. I write down each menu item as I dial it. If I ever have to call again (I’ve had to call my old mortgage company seven times so far), I can zip through the menu.
Before using that technique, I would listen to each menu option every time I called, trying to figure out which one would get me to an operator. I’ve tried dialing ‘0’ but that rarely worked. I also hit the buttons like a crazed woodpecker in an attempt to overload the system, thus leading me to a person, but the calm voiced just kept telling me I hadn’t dialed a valid menu option. There were times I would dial an option, then go back to the main menu and only then hear the option for speaking to a service representative.
I get the impression that companies are trying to keep me from talking to them, and I’m not the only one who has noticed this trend. Unlike the article however, I consider e-mail a suitable replacement as long as it takes less than 24 hours to get a response. After all, I don’t have to listen to another muzak version of “Smells Like Teen Spirit” when I send an e-mail.
I fully agree that talking to a real person beats the alternatives. However, customer support is often the first thing to get cut. As you mentioned, it’s all about $$, and if they can skimp by with an automatic voice (and in the process, discourage some callers), then they’re better off, unless you count their frustrated customers.
I’m certain that the phone menu systems cost far, far less than it does to hire and train a bunch of people to answer phones. One advantage to the menus, in some cases at least, is that they direct you to the right human in the first place, so you don’t have to hold for a clueless operator who will just have to transfer you to another on-hold support line.
What really peeved me was, a while ago, when I tried Sprint’s customer service line. Instead of menus, they used voice recognition and told you to talk to the machine. Talking to machines just isn’t natural, and it didn’t understand me anyway. To top it off, it said it couldn’t figure me out, so it was going to CHARGE me to talk to a human. I hung up immediately. I think they’ve given up on that now, thank goodness.
The key word is “customer”, not service. You see, they already have you. You’ve paid your money, you’re stuck. Here’s an experiment for you. Compare the wait time calling a company’s customer service line to their sales line. I’d wager that you get a living person on the first try with the sales line. Then once you make your purchase, you’re of no use to them. I’ve read somewhere that people’s loyalty to a given manufacturer has been replaced by “who has the cheepest price”.
I would like to choke the person who came up with this “bright” idea in the first place. Automated phone systems are the bane of my existence.
I used to just sit there and not press anything. That would get you through to a live person because they assumed you either had a dial phone or one of those phones that didn’t make standard beeps.
Unfortunately, I think companies started to think if you haven’t upgraded your phone in the last 15 years, they don’t want your business because they don’t seem to “code” their systems for those scenarios anymore. You just get the recording asking you over and over to make a choice before it disconnects you.