The Customer Service Survey
VocaLabs' weblog providing news and commentary on the challenges of providing good customer service.
Newsflash! Humans are smarter than computers!
Tuesday - September 06, 2005 12:00 PM in
One of the arguments we make when trying to convince people to not force callers to use self-service is that humans are smarter than computers. In other words, no matter what barriers you put between a caller and a human agent, if the caller is determined to find a way around the barriers then he or she will.
Nothing could make my point better than "Find-A-Human," an online database collecting shortcuts to live agents for various national companies. Customers are now collaborating to share hints on the best way to get past roadblocks to an agent.
Some companies make it easy. Other companies create truly mind-boggling barriers between customers and agents. For example:
To reach a human: "Hit zero, pound, three times over (ignore prompts that it's an invalid entry)"
or
To reach a human: "option 1, xt 7266966, option 1, option 4, option 4"
Other people have discovered innovative ways to jump ahead in the hold queue:
"For faster service, press the option that you are looking to close your account. You get the same ppl but an immediate answer"
(Thanks to Nuance's Speech Blog for the link to this site)
Posted by Peter Leppik
Some companies make it easy. Other companies create truly mind-boggling barriers between customers and agents. For example:
To reach a human: "Hit zero, pound, three times over (ignore prompts that it's an invalid entry)"
or
To reach a human: "option 1, xt 7266966, option 1, option 4, option 4"
Other people have discovered innovative ways to jump ahead in the hold queue:
"For faster service, press the option that you are looking to close your account. You get the same ppl but an immediate answer"
(Thanks to Nuance's Speech Blog for the link to this site)
Posted by Peter Leppik
Posted at 12:00 PM by | | | |