Monday, September 04, 2006
Simple choices
I've seen various posts on the net about how to talk to a real person most quickly with various major companies. Those posts, and the thoughts behind them, actually bug me quite a bit.
The whole idea behind having a menu system is to route the caller to the appropriate agent. There are definitely some companies that have shoddy or unnecessarily complicated systems to do that, but most seem to be pretty intuitive. Of course, this is me expressing my opinion, and I tend to do wild things like "pay attention to the choices" and "think". As some of our more memorable customers have demonstrated, these aren't traits shared by everyone.
Our system has three choices. You've got your reception choice, for signing up, questions about the service, that sort of thing. You've got your technical support choice, for problems related to the service. And you've got your accounts and billing choice, which is what you'll choose if you want to cancel or change your credit card. In more than 99% of our cases, one of those three options is going to cover what a customer is calling about, and yet a stunning number of people cannot successfully navigate this complicated trichotomy.
Sometimes, a customer just hits zero, in an effort to bypass the menu entirely. That customer will get to speak an operator right away, but that operator is going to identify which queue the caller needs to go into and transfer them. In other words, the customer has actually cost themselves some time.
Other times, a caller will just pick an option seemingly at random. They'll call technical support and want to sign up, or call reception and want to cancel. Again, the caller is just wasting their own time, as they'll be redirected to the proper queue, time they could have saved by listening to the choices and thinking about where their issue falls.
Admittedly, there are some calls where the choices don't appear to cover what you're calling about. A person calling about a job interview is best served talking to an operator, and a person looking to sell another innovative way of marketing is best served not calling at all (it'd be handy if our menu explained that). But if you're looking to get your questions answered or your problem solved or your self on the Internet as fast as possible, follow the system. It's there for exactly that reason.
The whole idea behind having a menu system is to route the caller to the appropriate agent. There are definitely some companies that have shoddy or unnecessarily complicated systems to do that, but most seem to be pretty intuitive. Of course, this is me expressing my opinion, and I tend to do wild things like "pay attention to the choices" and "think". As some of our more memorable customers have demonstrated, these aren't traits shared by everyone.
Our system has three choices. You've got your reception choice, for signing up, questions about the service, that sort of thing. You've got your technical support choice, for problems related to the service. And you've got your accounts and billing choice, which is what you'll choose if you want to cancel or change your credit card. In more than 99% of our cases, one of those three options is going to cover what a customer is calling about, and yet a stunning number of people cannot successfully navigate this complicated trichotomy.
Sometimes, a customer just hits zero, in an effort to bypass the menu entirely. That customer will get to speak an operator right away, but that operator is going to identify which queue the caller needs to go into and transfer them. In other words, the customer has actually cost themselves some time.
Other times, a caller will just pick an option seemingly at random. They'll call technical support and want to sign up, or call reception and want to cancel. Again, the caller is just wasting their own time, as they'll be redirected to the proper queue, time they could have saved by listening to the choices and thinking about where their issue falls.
Admittedly, there are some calls where the choices don't appear to cover what you're calling about. A person calling about a job interview is best served talking to an operator, and a person looking to sell another innovative way of marketing is best served not calling at all (it'd be handy if our menu explained that). But if you're looking to get your questions answered or your problem solved or your self on the Internet as fast as possible, follow the system. It's there for exactly that reason.
# posted by Terry @ 1:23 PM 
Comments:
<< Home
To Terry: While I mostly agree with you, it is worth mentioning that some companies have poorly designed phone systems, and many companies have many more departments than we do, which often require you to listen to 8 submenus. Often, a real person might get you there faster.
To facetious:
a) These people will likely
b) Filtering people through the series of steps to follow in common problem cases is 99% of HUMAN tech support. We do not put up an automated series of steps. As such, it's not automated steps that are a waste of your time, it's tech support generally that is a waste of your time, except for the rare case that something is actually wrong with our service, in which case we probably already know.
c) I agree that many companies are like this, although in our case this doesn't really apply as we have only 3 choices.
To facetious:
a) These people will likely
b) Filtering people through the series of steps to follow in common problem cases is 99% of HUMAN tech support. We do not put up an automated series of steps. As such, it's not automated steps that are a waste of your time, it's tech support generally that is a waste of your time, except for the rare case that something is actually wrong with our service, in which case we probably already know.
c) I agree that many companies are like this, although in our case this doesn't really apply as we have only 3 choices.
Oops, forgot to finish my thought on a)... What I was going to say was:
These people will likely be further alienated as time goes on. Personally, I prefer to deal with machines wherever machines can be implemented in a reasonable way, eg online/telephone banking, etc. I suppose that the best way for people who distrust machines to deal with companies is to find ones with lots of person availability, but I would tend to say that people who distrust machines should maybe think twice before using the internet. It's kinda machine heaven.
These people will likely be further alienated as time goes on. Personally, I prefer to deal with machines wherever machines can be implemented in a reasonable way, eg online/telephone banking, etc. I suppose that the best way for people who distrust machines to deal with companies is to find ones with lots of person availability, but I would tend to say that people who distrust machines should maybe think twice before using the internet. It's kinda machine heaven.
To Gid:
I did mention that some companies have poorly designed systems. Point is, there're still a number of people who believe it's always more expedient to hit 0 and try to talk to a person right away. Personally, I'd design a phone system where you can't hit an option that isn't on the menu, and if you don't have a touch tone phone, well, join the rest of us 30 years ahead of you in technological progress.
Also, I'm a jerk.
Post a Comment
I did mention that some companies have poorly designed systems. Point is, there're still a number of people who believe it's always more expedient to hit 0 and try to talk to a person right away. Personally, I'd design a phone system where you can't hit an option that isn't on the menu, and if you don't have a touch tone phone, well, join the rest of us 30 years ahead of you in technological progress.
Also, I'm a jerk.
<< Home
