What Idiot Invented the Automated Phone System?
Posted: Monday, March 16, 2009
by Mike Fak
http://mikefak.com
I live in a small town. Basically it is seven miles long by three miles wide. Maybe it's a little more or less but the point is it isn't very far from one place to another in Lincoln. Traffic is never heavy except for the Rush Minute' we have at 3:30 pm when a couple factories let out.
I like that about Lincoln. Being raised in Chicago and going back I ponder how anyone stays sane up there sitting in traffic for an hour or hours at a time trying to get somewhere.
I always love how as you push button after button to talk to someone to get an issue resolved how you always get," Your call is important to us." If the call was really important to them they would hire a couple people to actually pick up their phones so why feed us this crap that they care?
I also love the "Please hold the line or press 1 or 2 or 534 to be rerouted to another computer until you can't take it anymore and just give up.
They also tell you to go online and get things handled at their website. That doesn't do much good when you are calling your internet provider because you can't get online does it? Their websites also are a morass of go here and then there, whoops not here go back, aren't they. But I'm on a phone kick so let's stay on point.
I love the companies that start with a canned recording saying the company doesn't like this canned automated system but that is the way things are. If they didn't like this computer generated garbage they wouldn't use it then would they. But hey it saves a couple bucks in wages to help offset the multi-million dollar bonuses the honchos give themselves. Plus most people give up so they don't have as many problems to correct as there actually are. That means they can have fewer people in customer service so they can get even bigger bonuses. They can also brag in their advertising that they get few complaints. If they answered their phones they would find out just how lousy of a job they are doing so maybe that's why they have a computer fend for them.
I loved the time I didn't get a bill that I knew was coming due. I called and tried like hell to tell someone I wanted to pay it with a direct debit but I couldn't. I couldn't because I didn't have the invoice number on the bill I didn't get and the computer just said goodbye to me because I wasn't following format.
To make matters worse I then received a computer generated call saying I hadn't paid the invoice and if I wanted to do so immediately to press 2. But then when I did the computer said please give the invoice number and I started screaming.
Finally I found a number where I could talk to a human and the woman defended their runaround. The woman said it was for my protection. I asked her how often someone hacks into a person's account to pay a bill? Like the computer, she hung up on me.
I'm on the National Do-Not-Call List but that doesn't stop auto-generated phone calls. These companies are slick. They know they can bother us and who is there on the line to complain to that they aren't supposed to? It's just a computer and the computer doesn't care if it's bothering us. In fact computers were invented to bother people so it's doing its job.
The politicians all bother us too with their canned recordings. I love how they all start out with,"Please hold for a personal message from so and so." Nothing about a canned recording is personal but who can you yell at: a machine?
I'm sure all of you have a great computer generated phone fiasco to share. Let me know yours. Maybe there are enough that we can combine them all into an anthology.
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Top-level comments on this article: (6 total)Hi Mike.This is brilliant! I especially like: "Finally I found a number where I could talk to a human and the woman defended their runaround. The woman said it was for my protection. I asked her how often someone hacks into a person's account to pay a bill? Like the computer, she hung up on me."
Boy, I've had so many similar experiences, I wouldn't know where to start. One does come to mind, though. It is sort of a combined phone and website problem. I will see if I can write it up decently and send it to you.Shaking my head in utter incomprehension for all that idiocy,DianneThanks Dianne. Northing brilliant about the story, just another slice of life amidst the world we live in.Mike
I can feel your pain! I have always hated the voice recordings and being put on hold. But I have also lived on the other side of the fence and believe me the grass there is not greener. I worked for 16 years in an airline reservations call centre. The company I worked for has five call centres across Canada and two in the USA. The phone calls flow from one to the other, so calls come from everywhere. At the time of my retirement there were approximately 3000 agents working the phones. Still when you would call the airline you were given the old voice recording and put on hold while you listened to that awful canned musicOccasionally when I received a call, the customer would already sound frazzeled because of the long wait and sometimes I would get the comment, "Doesn't anyone answer the phone around there?" The fact of the matter was that the phone calls would come to us automatically, unless we hit the button to stop the process, and after one call was finished, the next call would come in within three seconds. Yes, we were definitely answering calls. I used to take approximately 14,000 phone calls per year. Now lets see, 14,000 phone calls times 3000 agents = 42,000,000 phone calls per year. With that call volume maybe the automated voice recordings are just a nessessary evil.I'm not sure what the answer is to the problem, but in our case it certainly is not the lack of telephone staff.Aha! Thank you David. I have learned over the years that there is always at least one other side to every story. Thanks for sharing and showing this one. I'm sure you could write a book about some of the calls you received and how goofy the callers were.Mike
So true, Mike, but it is spilling over to other areas. For example, it's taking longer and longer to fill up my car. My tank isn't larger, it's the questions! Yes, I want a receipt. No, I don't want a car wash.Thanks Ken. To be honest, and my wife laughs, there are only certain old-time gas stations I will use because of all that new-fangled electronic crap I refuse to learn at most of them.Mike
Mike,I loved this and how true, how true! While I find the automated systems more than annoying, what gets me are these companies who hire people to call my business and try to sell me something in a language that sounds a little bit like English. You can always tell the call in advance too. You answer the phone and there is silence for about 10 seconds until they come onto the line. That really frustrates me. If I say Hello, I expect a response immediately, not many moments later. On the other hand, it gives me 10 seconds to prepare for a good retort!Thank you for a wonderfully humorous 'truth.'NancyThanks Nancy. Yes, those calls agravate me. I also hate the ones where the youngster does speak English but their diction is so lousy it might as well be Latin.Mike
Uh-huh. I called Com-cussed the other day and the message was, "we are experiencing a high volume of calls right now, please hang up and try your call again later".What's that about? Were the computers stressed out, or were they on coffee break?I had no internet, and I did keep trying, but before I could get through, the net came back.Maybe they just didn't want to tell me that the most receint squirrel had passed, and they were out trying to find a new one!Or maybe they had more calls than their computers could handle. If it weren't for the automated system, you would not be put on hold, would not be in line to have your call taken when an agent was available. Instead, you would just receive a busy signal. Which do you think is better?I'll take the busy signal.When I hear the busy signal I can at least hope that it is because human beings are "busy" doing their job.I can understand your frustration, but like I wrote in my comments earlier in this forum, I worked for a company that had 3000 telephone agents. I used to take 14,000 phone calls per year. Based on that number our company took approximately 42,000,000 calls per year. There were days when we would have 400 calls on hold and that would be steady for the full eight hour day. If we had just let you hear a busy signal and expected you to call back, what do you think your chances would be of ever reaching a real live person?; probably zero. Now what do think would be more frustrating?I appreciate hearing from your side of the coin on this. I am sure there are many folks who would agree with you, just as I am sure there are many who would agree with me, and the original article.For myself personally, I miss personal service. I miss the days when businesses were small enough to know you by name when you walked in their door, and when making a phone call meant talking to someone.The company I referred to in my original post has a phone tree that can literally work the caller in circles, and never yeild a conversation with a real person. I truly hate that, and feel like my complaint against them is valid.I hear ya Nila, I really do. I also wish companies were small enough to be more personal. I live in a small town, yet I worked in the nearby large city. I prefer my small town to the big city because people are more personable. As an example, I went to a small cafe today for lunch. When I went to pay my bill, the girl said, "Sorry, we don't take debit cards, only cash". I told her I would leave my driver's license with her, while I went to the bank to get some cash. She said, "That's okay, just go to the bank. I know you'll come back to pay me."It is because of the big impersonal companies that, when I received each telephone call, I tried to be personable and helpful, giving the customer all the time they needed. Even though they may have been a little frustrated before they were able to speak to me, I know that in most cases, they went away feeling that they were being taken care of in the manner that they were wanting. The 'companies' out there may be big and impersonal, but the average guy working the phones is just that, an average guy, who really does want to give good customer service.It's been fun beating this subject back and forth with you. Keep a stiff upper lip and don't let those big corporations tear you down.I have no clue why my last comment posted twice, sorry about that.Good to talk with you, and see someone else's viewpoint.Have a good night.I appreciate hearing from your side of the coin on this. I am sure there are many folks who would agree with you, just as I am sure there are many who would agree with me, and the original article.For myself personally, I miss personal service. I miss the days when businesses were small enough to know you by name when you walked in their door, and when making a phone call meant talking to someone.The company I referred to in my original post has a phone tree that can literally work the caller in circles, and never yeild a conversation with a real person. I truly hate that, and feel like my complaint against them is valid.
Loved your article. so true. I am in the process of trying to cancel a so called free trial product and all I get is music, a recording about the next available rep and then more music. This has been going on for two days. I quit. I must have been asleep at the wheel to order something like this off the internet in the first place. Oh my where have I left my common sense. Thanks for the laughter.
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