The Customer Service Survey
Interesting Tidbits
Why Do I Love Apple?
Thu - May 1, 2008 01:04 PM
I've been out of the blogging loop for a couple weeks, thanks to some travel and lots of sick kids at home. So, apologies to our loyal reader (Hi, Mom!) for the long dry spell.
I stumbled across an interesting analysis yesterday on the Equity Private blog, where the anonymous author wonders why she loves Apple so much. After a lengthy analysis in which she talks about how many other companies try to maintain market share by building customer-unfriendly barriers around their products, the summary captures it perfectly:
Many big consumer-oriented companies can learn a lot from this statement.
Posted by Peter Leppik
Tax Day
Tue - April 15, 2008 10:21 AM
It's April 15th once again, here in the United States that's Tax Day.
The worst IVR system we ever tested was an IRS system called "TeleTax," which is still in use: 800-829-4477. We did this test as part of the calibration of our process many years ago, so it wasn't a client project (and hence I'm not under NDA about it).
TeleTax lets callers listen to prerecorded informational messages on about 100 topics, and the interface is almost completely unusable. In order to hear a given message, you need to know a three-digit code identifying the particular recording you want. For example, "100" plays a recording listing the kinds of IRS help which are available to taxpayers.
If you don't happen to know the code for the information you want, there is an index available--but just navigating to the index takes over two minutes thanks to all the helpful hints about getting information from the IRS' web site (not a bad strategy, actually). No live help is available on the TeleTax line.
Worse, the system appears to have been generally neglected (again, not surprising, since I doubt many taxpayers actually find this a useful resource) with some bugs and general degradation. When I entered "253" to access a recording about alternative tax forms, I got the message "That is not a valid entry. Please enter your social security number." Apparently at some point, "2" was turned into a universal option for transferring out to the refund status line--probably when someone discovered that the vast majority of callers to TeleTax actually wanted to check on their tax refund and called the wrong number--but the entries were not reindexed to take this change into account.
So no matter how bad the IVR jail at your least-favorite bank or airline, you can take comfort in this: the IRS is worse.
Posted by Peter Leppik
TeleTax lets callers listen to prerecorded informational messages on about 100 topics, and the interface is almost completely unusable. In order to hear a given message, you need to know a three-digit code identifying the particular recording you want. For example, "100" plays a recording listing the kinds of IRS help which are available to taxpayers.
If you don't happen to know the code for the information you want, there is an index available--but just navigating to the index takes over two minutes thanks to all the helpful hints about getting information from the IRS' web site (not a bad strategy, actually). No live help is available on the TeleTax line.
Worse, the system appears to have been generally neglected (again, not surprising, since I doubt many taxpayers actually find this a useful resource) with some bugs and general degradation. When I entered "253" to access a recording about alternative tax forms, I got the message "That is not a valid entry. Please enter your social security number." Apparently at some point, "2" was turned into a universal option for transferring out to the refund status line--probably when someone discovered that the vast majority of callers to TeleTax actually wanted to check on their tax refund and called the wrong number--but the entries were not reindexed to take this change into account.
So no matter how bad the IVR jail at your least-favorite bank or airline, you can take comfort in this: the IRS is worse.
Posted by Peter Leppik
Judge Rules Management Training Materials "Aggressively Vapid"
Fri - March 21, 2008 01:11 PM
Anyone who has spent any time working in a large company has probably been through some sort of training program. Sometimes it's useful, more often it's an excuse to get paid for eating bagels and drinking coffee for a day.
One such program became the subject of a copyright dispute when a group of training consultants quit their jobs to form their own company and develop their own training materials. The original employer sued, alleging that the breakaway employees violated the copyright on the materials.
The judge disagreed, apparently ruling that copyright law applies to "original creative works," and that the management training materials were neither original nor creative:
"These works exemplify the sorts of training programs that serve as fodder for sardonic workplace humor that has given rise to the popular television show The Office and the movie Office Space. They are aggressively vapid-hundreds of pages filled with generalizations, platitudes, and observations of the obvious."
All across the country, office workers applaud Judge Young for recognizing the, well, obvious.
Posted by Peter Leppik
The judge disagreed, apparently ruling that copyright law applies to "original creative works," and that the management training materials were neither original nor creative:
"These works exemplify the sorts of training programs that serve as fodder for sardonic workplace humor that has given rise to the popular television show The Office and the movie Office Space. They are aggressively vapid-hundreds of pages filled with generalizations, platitudes, and observations of the obvious."
All across the country, office workers applaud Judge Young for recognizing the, well, obvious.
Posted by Peter Leppik
Extra! Extra! Customers Still Fed Up
Thu - March 20, 2008 11:01 AM
"Customers are angry about customer service" is a staple of consumer reporting. If I passed along every one of those articles, this would be the "Customers Angry About Service" blog.
Still, it's been a while since I've linked to one of those articles, so it's about time for another. Today's choice comes from the Christian Science Monitor, and features consumers complaining about clueless customer service reps, useless automation, and phone reps based overseas. There's also the hopeful conclusion about how more companies are starting to get the message and focus on service.
Enjoy!
Posted by Peter Leppik
Enjoy!
Posted by Peter Leppik
It's 3 AM at the White House
Wed - March 12, 2008 01:00 PM
It's 3 AM at the White House, and the phone is ringing.
More Ink
Mon - March 10, 2008 01:17 PM
Speech Technology Magazine mentioned us again in the March 2008 issue, in an article about usability testing.
Check it out--it's not a bad overview.
Posted by Peter Leppik
Posted by Peter Leppik
50 Tips...
Thu - March 6, 2008 01:55 PM
Via Consumerist, here's a list of "50-Plus Hacks and Tips to Get to a Real Person at Any Corporation in 10 Seconds or Less."
The title is a little misleading, since many of the tips won't cut the wait to anything close to ten seconds, there are a lot of good ideas.
And some not-so-good ones. For example, "don't pay your bill." While that will eventually generate a call from the company, it's going to take a couple months and you probably won't get much in the way of customer service (unless you consider, "Pay up, deadbeat, or we'll send Luigi after you" the height of friendly corporate interaction).
Personally, I would have also put the list of "Cool Services" at the top of the list instead of the bottom, but that's just me.
Check it out.
Posted by Peter Leppik
And some not-so-good ones. For example, "don't pay your bill." While that will eventually generate a call from the company, it's going to take a couple months and you probably won't get much in the way of customer service (unless you consider, "Pay up, deadbeat, or we'll send Luigi after you" the height of friendly corporate interaction).
Personally, I would have also put the list of "Cool Services" at the top of the list instead of the bottom, but that's just me.
Check it out.
Posted by Peter Leppik
Should Voice User Interface designers endorse the GetHuman standard?
Tue - March 4, 2008 02:42 PM
A couple years ago, the website GetHuman.com (which specializes in giving consumers hints on how to bypass IVR systems) published the GetHuman Standard, a set of recommendations on how to serve customers better over the phone.
Since then, the Standard pretty much disappeared beneath the waves with barely a ripple. So it was surprising when the question came up on the VUI Designers list (a forum for people who design IVR systems) of whether VUI designers should endorse the GetHuman standard.
Personally, I don't have strong feelings about the GetHuman Standard. There are some very sensical ideas in it, but I think the notion that companies will voluntarily embrace it is naive.
The really interesting thing is that the question of endorsing the Standard--after being moribund for so long--even came up in a serious way.
I think that most VUI designers are hardworking and well-intentioned professionals who often feel very frustrated when they are forced by business requirements to design systems which they know customers will hate.
Unfortunately, VUI designers getting behind the GetHuman standard isn't likely to solve the problem, even if most of the ideas should be part of any common-sense checklist of good customer service ideas. Instead, companies will have to perceive customer service as an important part of their total product or service offering, and consumers will have to make buying decisions based on service quality.
Posted by Peter Leppik
Personally, I don't have strong feelings about the GetHuman Standard. There are some very sensical ideas in it, but I think the notion that companies will voluntarily embrace it is naive.
The really interesting thing is that the question of endorsing the Standard--after being moribund for so long--even came up in a serious way.
I think that most VUI designers are hardworking and well-intentioned professionals who often feel very frustrated when they are forced by business requirements to design systems which they know customers will hate.
Unfortunately, VUI designers getting behind the GetHuman standard isn't likely to solve the problem, even if most of the ideas should be part of any common-sense checklist of good customer service ideas. Instead, companies will have to perceive customer service as an important part of their total product or service offering, and consumers will have to make buying decisions based on service quality.
Posted by Peter Leppik
New call center blog
Fri - February 29, 2008 02:51 PM
I just stumbled on a new call center industry blog today, run by theNational Association of Call Centers. The blog is written by Paul Stockford of Saddletree Research, and the NACC is run by David Butler.
I don't know much of anything about either NACC or the people involved, but the first few blog entries certainly show some promise. I intend to go introduce myself and see what those folks are all about...
Posted by Peter Leppik
Posted by Peter Leppik
Back door
Thu - February 14, 2008 02:29 PM
Julianne Dalcanton accidentally discovered a back-door way to escape United Airlines' speech-based self service system.
Amusing as her story is, I wonder how long this will take to show up on Gethuman.com, resulting in an entirely predictable flood of obscenity-flinging customers at United.
Posted by Peter Leppik
Posted by Peter Leppik
With apologies to Arthur C. Clarke....
Fri - January 18, 2008 02:32 PM
Overheard recently:
"Any sufficiently advanced statistic is indistinguishable from nonsense."
True, so true. Keep that in mind the next time you're perusing someone's regression chain or reading the latest political poll analysis.
Posted by Peter Leppik
True, so true. Keep that in mind the next time you're perusing someone's regression chain or reading the latest political poll analysis.
Posted by Peter Leppik
"The Sounds of Silence"
Thu - January 17, 2008 04:05 PM
This has been around for a couple years, but I only stumbled upon it today: David Pogue's 2006 presentation at the TED conference about simplicity.
It's a 20 minute presentation, but well worth watching to the end. He talks about the frustrations of modern technology for the average consumer, a lot of which basically boils down to the fact that the capabilities of modern gadgets have outstripped our ability to make those functions understandable to non-experts.
The best part, though, comes right at the beginning with his song, "The Sounds of Silence," about waiting on hold for tech support.
Posted by Peter Leppik
The best part, though, comes right at the beginning with his song, "The Sounds of Silence," about waiting on hold for tech support.
Posted by Peter Leppik
A Slow Day in the Call Center
Fri - January 4, 2008 02:19 PM
No matter how carefully staffed, every call center is going to have slow moments.
So what's a CSR to do on those days when call volume just isn't enough to keep you nailed to the phone? In the old days, you'd review training material, chat with coworkers at the water cooler, maybe even read a book.
Today....we've got YouTube.
Posted by Peter Leppik
Today....we've got YouTube.
Posted by Peter Leppik
How many customers did your bad customer service cost?
Fri - December 7, 2007 03:08 PM
One of the reasons bad customer service remains at a lot of companies is that it can be very difficult to quantify the cost. Everyone knows that bad service costs customers, but it's really hard to put a number on it.
So it was really interesting to read this tidbit, that United Health figures it has lost 315,000 customers because of poor service, and that the bleeding is expected to continue into next year.
I'm not sure how they arrived at that figure--it seems to relate to a single botched acquisition in California--but it's an unusually specific accounting of the number of customers lost to poor service.
Posted by Peter Leppik
I'm not sure how they arrived at that figure--it seems to relate to a single botched acquisition in California--but it's an unusually specific accounting of the number of customers lost to poor service.
Posted by Peter Leppik
Butt of the Joke
Thu - November 29, 2007 02:20 PM
Just in case you needed it, here's more evidence that the state of phone customer service is so bad it's the butt of the joke.
The Writers' Guild of America, as part of their strike against Hollywood producers, made a short video (starring actress Holly Hunter) depicting what would presumably happen if professional scriptwriters were sacrificed on the altar of cutting costs.
When Hunter has trouble with part of the script, she asks to speak to the writer on the phone. Instead she gets transferred to a call center in India, where the rep has considerable difficulty understanding why she's calling.
It's cute. And sad, in a way, that customer service has become such a handy metaphor for "something completely unrelated to what you want or need."
Posted by Peter Leppik
When Hunter has trouble with part of the script, she asks to speak to the writer on the phone. Instead she gets transferred to a call center in India, where the rep has considerable difficulty understanding why she's calling.
It's cute. And sad, in a way, that customer service has become such a handy metaphor for "something completely unrelated to what you want or need."
Posted by Peter Leppik