Just Let Me Talk to a Human Being!

Have you ever experienced the annoying situation, where you have to go through a series of computer enabled IVR options to reach an actual human being, when you call a customer support center of a business you are a customer? Trust me, there is nothing worst a company can do to piss off their customers than sending them through this painful IVR menus.

This morning, I called my mobile operator’s customer support number to get a simple advice on “how do I fix my mobile internet connection settings?”, as I was having trouble in connecting to the internet using my mobile.

Guess what? This is the pain that I had to go through just to reach a ‘human voice’ on the other end.

A recorded welcome message, which take about 20 seconds to greet me, and then a series of IVR options to choose from, each taking about 5 to 10 seconds to play back.

Press 1 for past and present billing

Press 2 for call an agent or access other services

Press 3 for shuffling the service language

Now you would think I’m going to reach my destination, as soon as I press number 2. Wrong!

Press 1 for VAS activations

Press 2 for complaint about lost phones

Press 3 for inquire about package charges

Press 4 for inquire about your loyalty points

Press 5 for change the IVR menu preferences

Press 6 for talk to one of our agents

Each of these IVR instructions take about 5 to 10 seconds to play back and I had to wait listening to all, until it announced the option that matters to me. I pressed, number 6 and guess what happened? Did I get my agent on line? Wrong again!

Press 1 to talk to a customer service agent

Press 2 to talk to a technical service agent

Now, since my query is about an internet setting I pressed number 2 and waited. By now, about 2 and half minutes passed from the point I initiated the call. A nice female voice came online, greeted me, and asked me what my problem is. I started explaining my problem, and she cut me in the middle, asked me for the model of my phone, and said, “I’ll send your internet settings now and you have to accept it. Hereafter, if you need assistance in getting the settings installed, just dial # {some string of numbers} # and get it done”. She even didn’t double checked if I correctly noted down that string of numbers and greeted me “have a nice day” and cut the line. It all happened in a flash, and took about only 40 seconds for the whole conversation.

See how funny this is? It took me more than 2 minutes to go through the IVR menu, and the conversation with the agent took less than 60 seconds.

I would have let go this one, and probably wouldn’t have write this post, if that solved my problem. Even after receiving the new settings, I could not connect to the internet on my mobile. I was no way in a mood to give up so easily, and I called the number again. After going through the same process as above, this time, I reached a male voice. (who’s name I wrote down in a piece of paper this time, for future references if required).

Once again, he proved himself not very helpful for the customer (me). To add more to the annoyance, he was speaking like a programmed robot in a monotonous tone of voice (which wasn't not too clear to understand what he is talking), and using a strictly grammatical Sinhala language as in grade 5 grammar books (I opted Sinhala as the preferred language to speak in). I was furiously annoyed with the pain I had to go through to pass all those IVR menus to get through to this guy, and when he is speaking in the same tone as the IVR menu, what else you can expect from me other than having a blast at the poor guy who is just doing a paid job? He too, some how failed to give me a satisfactory answer but I managed to get the #107# number string correctly noted down this time. I later solved the problem my self, by deleting all existing settings and installing everything again by using this number.

The point here is, these companies have totally lost the purpose of having a customer service division. Your customer service division is there to solve the problems of your customers, satisfactorily as quickly as you can. If you forget that purpose and burden your customer further more, with your ‘fancy technologies’, you are actually not doing good for either to your brand or to your customers. Of course, you will boast in industry conferences and press releases etc. that “we have the most sophisticated state of the art customer service center in South Asia” or “our customer service executives are professionally trained to be well disciplined” but does it really matter for your customers, if their problem is not solved?

People like to interact with other people, and they naturally hate robots. If you ‘robotify’ your customer service function and turn your agents too into robots, you are killing that ‘human personality’ which your customers want to see in your brand.

IVR menus, service desk ticket systems, standard responses and what more? Minimize the stupid processes which show off you are a high tech company, and speed up the delivery of what you promised!to your customers. That is all what customers are expecting from you.

Originally posted on www.amisampath.com Like this blog? Get email updates when I post next time, or subscribe to the feed on a reader. Follow me on Twitter @Amisampath Please help improve the quality of this blog. Report any spelling or grammar mistake here