Posts Tagged Customer Service

Automation as Plague: How Consumers Avoid It

Posted by Matt on Tuesday, 2 February, 2010
 

The Wall

The Angst of IVR

GetHuman Provides Compendium of IVR Avoidance

I was listening to Pink Floyd’s The Wall the other day. A funny thing happened. Instead of experiencing “Comfortably Numb” as a lamentation on drug use and alienation, I heard the hallucinatory exchange between customer and automated system. Well, at least in part.

Caller: Hello, is there anybody in there? Just nod if you can hear me. Is there anyone at home?

IVR: Relax. I’ll need some information first. Just the basic facts. Can you show where it hurts?

It’s even more trippy when you listen like this!

Lately, I’ve been attuned to the consumer advocacy movement that has become prominent on websites and social media channels.

One of particular interest is gethuman.com, a website that provides customer service shortcuts; how to bypass automation and reach a live agent as quickly as possible.

As of this writing, there are 1,578 companies documented. Now, I’m sure these companies run the gamut in terms of customer experience quality. Just from a quick glance, I see many GM Voices customers (at the very least, they have great Voice Brands).

But it speaks to a greater dissatisfaction within the call center realm. The people who reference this site are jaded, burned too many times, and they wield increasingly growing influence.

Can companies reverse this trend and turn the unbelievers into advocates? No. Well, not entirely. It’s a bigger project than is necessary. Companies need to take care of their own customer experience and not worry about paradigm shifts. After all, great journeys begin with single steps.

“Welcome my son, welcome to the machine.”

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Self Service for a Fast-paced World: Do It Right or Pay the Price

Posted by Matt on Monday, 21 December, 2009

People are busy. Every day is an overload of information, marketing, work, traffic and fast food. Whatever scraps left over from the day are called “me time” or “family time.” This is one reason why kids are insufferable these days. When neglected and left to their own (electronic, social networking) devices, they turn into monsters.

The time crunch of 21st century living has mostly killed the necessity (or even the option) of face-to-face contact. It makes me sad. But just a little. I have a report to finish. A blog entry to write. There’s no time to finish today’s to-do list, let alone mourn the death of chit chat with my grocer or a conversation with a live customer service agent.

Self service is great, if you can shave off the seconds.

Self service is great, if you can shave off the seconds.

I’m all about efficiency these days. If I can shave 30 seconds off my trip to Kroger by ringing up my own razor blades, I shave them so I can shave sooner. If I can access my account through IVR and bypass my goofy bank teller, I listen to the voice prompts and get on with my day, even though he is a hoot.

And you’re probably the same way. You’re busy. Self-service sounds like a great idea if you can keep it moving. But here’s the problem: To keep it moving, the application needs to work. The kiosk at Kroger works, the ATM works; people are comfortable helping themselves, buying, when it’s easy. Over the phone, it’s not easy. This is why people are angry, and this is why companies are paying the price.

Emily Yellin’s book Your Call Is (Not That) Important to Us is an epic screed of customer disillusionment, chock full of businesses dropping the ball as if coated in Crisco. At GM Voices, we’re constantly pounding the point of an improved customer experience. What we do here, giving automated applications a clear, natural, brand-consistent sound, is a small but essential part of avoiding that fumble. You need a good call flow, a good script; you need to pick your battles. Which tasks are appropriate for automation? Which require Carl from the call center?

Lots of companies haven’t figured this out. They can’t discern. It’s why they’re getting lit up for $7.50 per phone call (the cost of a customer opting out of a self-service application for a live agent). People want to help themselves. It’s fast! Companies want people to help themselves. It’s cheap! As in a few cents. This should be something everyone can agree on: Fix the phone, watch the savings.

People are busy. Give ‘em what they want. Just do it right.

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Get the Balance Right: Live Agent vs. Automation

Posted by Matt on Wednesday, 2 December, 2009

It seems like whenever I tell someone that my company produces the prerecorded voice prompts and messages heard on automated phone systems, I get a response like this…  

Is this your customer?

Is this your customer?

“I hate those things” or “I usually just start pressing 0.”

I guess it does hurt my feelings a bit.   You know, I am a sensitive sort of guy.  I usually just respond with…

“Oh, you must have called a company that hasn’t hired GM Voices for our user design enhancement services!”

Don’t get me wrong, we love what we do here at GM Voices where we create the best voice brands in the country. Our natural-sounding voice actors create virtual personas that help our customers speak with brand-consistent voices every time a customer calls.

Unfortunately, for every well designed IVR or speech recognition system in the marketplace, there are a dozen poor implementations that are irritating millions of callers day in and day out.

The voice self-service industry has got to do a better job identifying what issues lend themselves to automation and which ones can be better addressed with a live, thinking customer service rep.  And for goodness sakes, we’ve got to stop making it so difficult to get to a live agent on the phone.

It’s really all about taking care of customers. When voice automation works effectively, the customer is happy and keeps buying. At some point, companies that use it poorly will lose customers to the companies that see the real value in the customer experience.

Read this article (now blogged) that appeared in Newsday in New York.  It’s just the tip of the iceberg. After you read it, click on these comments to see what the average person on the street thinks of voice automation and the conspiracy to keep calls from talking to real, live, human agents.

Marcus Graham

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