How many of you have been victims of the automated phone services (henceforth on this blog known with the acronymn APS)? No, they're not computerised aliens taking over the world, but they very well will be soon! Neither are they Automated Power Supplies, far from it in fact.
These dastardly disembodied mechanical voices, usually female, try to make you feel at ease (as in fantasy-ease, nice, soothing, excellent radio DJ kind of voice, but probably with a face that could sink a thousand ships!) while you listen in and key in the correct digits on your phone to get you to the correct department.
Most banks, offices, ticketing agents, factories with thousands of departments, the list goes on and on. Soon, nobody human will be answering the phone except these voice boxes. Some leave the sneaky option at the end of all the 9 options, to speak to a human being, aka operator, press zero. In other words, after 10 options, this sneaky option is the loophole for those who can't seem to decide which of the other 9 options you called them for or the category you fall under.
One of the best APS I've ever encountered was in London. I was booking air tickets for my trip to Denmark. The APS did the normal and usual thing of telling you that your call is important to all, please continue holding, blah, blah, blah... but with the added bonus of telling you your queue number! You are number 12 in the queue, please continue holding and we will attend to you shortly. Every 10 seconds or so, it will refresh, soon you're number 5 in the queue and then number 2 and then someone actually answers your call after that - ingenious!
The potential of this added feature defied all laws of customer service and will definitely cut down our waiting time. I just wish that they will buy and implement the system in this country, it could save our lives! Instead of having being put on hold for god knows how long, and then having the operator answer your call, only to press the wrong button to disconnect you. Some of these imbecilic operators are hard-pressed for time, perhaps they have a quota to answer as many calls as possible or get fired. And I thought they should put their heart and soul into attending to their customers, after all, we're the most important. Say something wrongly or provide bad service and we boycott your company and publicise your pathetic state by word of mouth to friends and family, far and wide.
Today, I was put on hold for a call placed to a famous and popular banking service from America, well at least I think it's America with all those mergers and takeovers, I don't really know which country owns which bank anymore. Anyway, I held on and waited (there was some music played thank god) for almost more than 10 minutes (I never knew I was so patient, or was it desperation?) because that particular banks Internet banking services added a new security feature that needed you to get a PIN number from them. Unfortunately, today was the due date for credit card payment and the operator could only get the PIN for me in 3 working days. I waited again to get him to transfer me to their customer services, another 10 minutes mind you, and he answered saying that they are very busy. Fancy that, he could have told me that 10 minutes ago, so that I try to call back later. And my cellphone battery was dying.
Can you imagine, if you had lost your credit card overseas, all desperate and worried, and you want to report it lost to your bank. In the 10 minutes that they put you on hold, whoever stole your credit card can go on a shopping spree at all the expensive shopping outlets nearby and chalk up a ginormous amount of debt with your card, before the bank can even answer your phone call to disable your credit card. On top of that, you incur international phone charges for being put on hold for so long. Does the bank pay for these charges? I think not!
Looks like it's time these companies look into improving their APS and not just talk about improving it, but do abso-fucking-lutely nothing about it. In the end, you, as a company will lose all your customers to another company that can provide better services to their customers.
I just hope that imbecilic operator who disconnected me is reading this. I had a good mind to call your superiors to get you fired.
Be thankful that I didn't.
These dastardly disembodied mechanical voices, usually female, try to make you feel at ease (as in fantasy-ease, nice, soothing, excellent radio DJ kind of voice, but probably with a face that could sink a thousand ships!) while you listen in and key in the correct digits on your phone to get you to the correct department.
Most banks, offices, ticketing agents, factories with thousands of departments, the list goes on and on. Soon, nobody human will be answering the phone except these voice boxes. Some leave the sneaky option at the end of all the 9 options, to speak to a human being, aka operator, press zero. In other words, after 10 options, this sneaky option is the loophole for those who can't seem to decide which of the other 9 options you called them for or the category you fall under.
One of the best APS I've ever encountered was in London. I was booking air tickets for my trip to Denmark. The APS did the normal and usual thing of telling you that your call is important to all, please continue holding, blah, blah, blah... but with the added bonus of telling you your queue number! You are number 12 in the queue, please continue holding and we will attend to you shortly. Every 10 seconds or so, it will refresh, soon you're number 5 in the queue and then number 2 and then someone actually answers your call after that - ingenious!
The potential of this added feature defied all laws of customer service and will definitely cut down our waiting time. I just wish that they will buy and implement the system in this country, it could save our lives! Instead of having being put on hold for god knows how long, and then having the operator answer your call, only to press the wrong button to disconnect you. Some of these imbecilic operators are hard-pressed for time, perhaps they have a quota to answer as many calls as possible or get fired. And I thought they should put their heart and soul into attending to their customers, after all, we're the most important. Say something wrongly or provide bad service and we boycott your company and publicise your pathetic state by word of mouth to friends and family, far and wide.
Today, I was put on hold for a call placed to a famous and popular banking service from America, well at least I think it's America with all those mergers and takeovers, I don't really know which country owns which bank anymore. Anyway, I held on and waited (there was some music played thank god) for almost more than 10 minutes (I never knew I was so patient, or was it desperation?) because that particular banks Internet banking services added a new security feature that needed you to get a PIN number from them. Unfortunately, today was the due date for credit card payment and the operator could only get the PIN for me in 3 working days. I waited again to get him to transfer me to their customer services, another 10 minutes mind you, and he answered saying that they are very busy. Fancy that, he could have told me that 10 minutes ago, so that I try to call back later. And my cellphone battery was dying.
Can you imagine, if you had lost your credit card overseas, all desperate and worried, and you want to report it lost to your bank. In the 10 minutes that they put you on hold, whoever stole your credit card can go on a shopping spree at all the expensive shopping outlets nearby and chalk up a ginormous amount of debt with your card, before the bank can even answer your phone call to disable your credit card. On top of that, you incur international phone charges for being put on hold for so long. Does the bank pay for these charges? I think not!
Looks like it's time these companies look into improving their APS and not just talk about improving it, but do abso-fucking-lutely nothing about it. In the end, you, as a company will lose all your customers to another company that can provide better services to their customers.
I just hope that imbecilic operator who disconnected me is reading this. I had a good mind to call your superiors to get you fired.
Be thankful that I didn't.
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