Pet Peeve

Posted by: tfabris

Pet Peeve - 05/01/2006 04:33

Companies you call up and the IVR system asks you for your account number or your phone number. You punch it in, they confirm it, you press 1 for "Yes, this number is correct". This procedure takes about 1000 minutes to do.

Then, as soon as you get through to a real human being, THEY ASK YOU FOR YOUR ACCOUNT NUMBER AGAIN. GAH.

In fact, I have yet to find a company where I call them up and punch in the number, and they DON'T ask for the number again.

Thank you for letting me rant. Please continue on with whatever you were doing.
Posted by: tman

Re: Pet Peeve - 05/01/2006 05:17

They're testing you? You don't want to know what happens if the numbers don't match up!
Posted by: Roger

Re: Pet Peeve - 05/01/2006 06:56

Quote:
Then, as soon as you get through to a real human being, THEY ASK YOU FOR YOUR ACCOUNT NUMBER AGAIN. GAH.


This is because they're shit. Way back when, before I worked before the company before empeg, when I was working in telephony -- this is like 1998 or something -- we sold fully-integrated IVR/CTI systems that would deliver your call to an agent, with all of the details fully filled in on their screen. Seems like nobody's bothered to use the technology.
Posted by: furtive

Re: Pet Peeve - 05/01/2006 11:12

My company does. It brings up customer info based on CLI details
Posted by: sein

Re: Pet Peeve - 05/01/2006 14:16

Quote:
My company does. It brings up customer info based on CLI details

Dominoes Pizza do that as well actually. When you call them up, they know your name, address, and a history of what you ordered too. Its all about CRM.

But, definately, its very annoying for me too when companies have half-brained systems that don't use the information they're given. One example is NTL who ask you to tap in your phone number when you call them, only for a human to ask you the same question after you've been on hold for half an hour. Just to annoy you that little bit more.
Posted by: Roger

Re: Pet Peeve - 05/01/2006 15:25

Quote:
Dominoes Pizza do that as well actually.


Heh. I'd forgotten about them. Way back when (1998 probably) I would ring them once or twice a week for pizza, and -- because I only ever ordered a large Pepperoni -- the only conversation required was the Dominoes guy saying "it'll be there in 20 minutes"
Posted by: Dignan

Re: Pet Peeve - 05/01/2006 15:35

I completely agree, Tony. The only instance I've had where it does work is when I recently called UPS about a shipment. Good thing, too, because I didn't want to repeat one of those damn tracking numbers again.

On the bright side, voice recognition with these systems is impressive these days. For someone like me, who mumbles pretty badly on the phone, to be able to speak a long tracking number at a pretty decent speed is pretty good.
Posted by: andy

Re: Pet Peeve - 05/01/2006 16:23

Quote:
Its all about CRM.



Most of the code that I have written over the last 8 years has been for CRM, Onyx's CRM in particular.

Quote:
But, definately, its very annoying for me too when companies have half-brained systems that don't use the information they're given. One example is NTL who ask you to tap in your phone number when you call them, only for a human to ask you the same question after you've been on hold for half an hour.


Ironically ntl: is one of Onyx's customers...

...and they have software in place to handle all the CTI-CRM integration, in theory at least.
Posted by: JBjorgen

Re: Pet Peeve - 05/01/2006 16:53

<OT>Happy Birthday Andy!!</OT>
Posted by: Dignan

Re: Pet Peeve - 05/01/2006 16:53

I'm not claiming to know anything about this CRM stuff, but I just wanted to mention that yesterday I listened to a podcast that mentioned that 37Signals would be developing a sot-of-CRM application. I like their stuff, and think they have a good philosophy for software.
Posted by: Robotic

Re: Pet Peeve - 05/01/2006 17:46

Quote:
Then, as soon as you get through to a real human being, THEY ASK YOU FOR YOUR ACCOUNT NUMBER AGAIN. GAH.

I suppose that there are options in the menus that will provide the information/service that is requested on a fully automated basis- no human required. For this scenario, the account number entry is useful.
If I want to access this sort of option (and I know it exists) then, fine, I enter all the data and play with the automated system.
If I want to talk to someone, I don't play games- I start pressing 0 until someone picks up the line.
I think I read somewhere recently about a website that offers tips on how to navigate your way to a human on various companies phone systems- it's not always a bunch of zeros.
Hmm- can't remember where I read that...
Posted by: drakino

Re: Pet Peeve - 05/01/2006 19:18

Quote:
Seems like nobody's bothered to use the technology.

The problem I am betting with most of these technologies is that they end up being very disruptive to the person taking the call. The system I used for a short time under the Compaq banner would populate the phone number field in our call logger when someone called so we could log a case. Problem is, the application that pulled the phone number off the phone switch would then force the call logger to the front and start doing a macro to get a new case started with the phone number. If I was clicking anywhere else or typing, the process was broken and wasted my time to clean up the program to then get a case started.

Most people on my team stopped the program when they logged in for the day because of this. Or the other issue was that the phone number might not be right, as larger companies tended to put their account info on a main number, and not every IT workers desk phone. It was just easier to ask "What phone number is your account info under" then hope the application might work and that the customer entered the right number in the system, as ours did no verification.

The system I do like now though is one used on the HP enterprise support line. The first menu asks if it is an existing call the customer is calling in about. If that selection is picked, the system asks for the case number, and will route the call to the last department to work with the case. In addition, if the tech who last worked the case is available, it will first ring their phone before going to the general queue to be answered by someone else. All without software on every PC. This helps, since HP supports multiple OS choice internally for the employees, and usually all the CTI software is Windows only.
Posted by: Mataglap

Re: Pet Peeve - 05/01/2006 19:21

Quote:
I think I read somewhere recently about a website that offers tips on how to navigate your way to a human on various companies phone systems- it's not always a bunch of zeros.
Hmm- can't remember where I read that...


there was another such conversation here, same one where kayak.com was mentioned. Pretty sure a voicemail navigation site was linked to.
Posted by: Dignan

Re: Pet Peeve - 05/01/2006 19:31

Hehe, I've had this experience a few times. I recently had to call Sprint about something and was hung up on a couple times. The third time I called back, the first chance I had to say something I said "MANAGER!"

I didn't get connected to an actual manager, but it seemed to connect me a little faster
Posted by: schofiel

Re: Pet Peeve - 05/01/2006 20:10

Curious, so was I at the end of '97. Ours gave the agent a full screen summary of the caller which we pulled out of the national phone database and a copy of their tax dossier. They still asked for the SOFI number (NI number). When we asked why they did this when they had the name, address, telephone number, SOFI number, tax dossier and all the rest that they needed to immediately begin dealing with their customer, they inevitably said "Because they (the departmental heads) said we had to since we couldn't trust the system".

So we told their bosses and training people this, 'cos the whole point of the system was to boost the agent's efficiency and reduce call time by having this information at their fingertips on the screen. "Yes, yes, we'll change the training".

The first question they asked me (in December 2005 when I last rung them) was "Could I have your name and SOFI number please?"

Posted by: g_attrill

Re: Pet Peeve - 05/01/2006 21:05

Quote:
Quote:
I think I read somewhere recently about a website that offers tips on how to navigate your way to a human on various companies phone systems- it's not always a bunch of zeros.
Hmm- can't remember where I read that...


there was another such conversation here, same one where kayak.com was mentioned. Pretty sure a voicemail navigation site was linked to.


IVR Cheat Sheet:

http://paulenglish.com/ivr/

and the new UK list:

http://paulenglish.com/ivr/uk/
Posted by: JeffS

Re: Pet Peeve - 05/01/2006 22:16

Quote:
In fact, I have yet to find a company where I call them up and punch in the number, and they DON'T ask for the number again.
I ran into a company a couple of years ago that had me punch in the number and then didn't ask me for it verbally. I was so suprised I asked and then complemented the lady when she told me that they were, in fact, using the information I'd punched in. She didn't quite know how to respond.

Don't remember what compnay it was, though.