If you hear this, prepare for a bad time…
It happened to me again today.
The first time was with an insurance company, some time last year.
I thought I was hearing things at first.
Surely nobody could really be THAT stupid, right?
As customers, we’ve become used to a lot of terrible treatment when it comes to customer service.
We accept that we’ll probably have to CALL on the phone.
We accept that there will be an automated phone system of some kind.
We accept that we’ll be waiting on hold.
We accept that the first person we speak to will be a mindless script reading NPC who can’t help us with anything other than the simplest of tasks. The kind of thing we wouldn’t have called about, because we’re not idiots.
We probably even accept that when we call, the phone will ring half a time and then play a LOUD beeping noise in our ear for no apparent reason. Ahh, technology.
But today’s rant, I mean email, is about something I will never be able to let go.
Something so mind-bogglingly stupid that it must have been dreamed up by a bunch of overweight business casual middle managers in a windowless conference room. Or even worse, a “customer service consultant.”
I’m talking about a very specific “feature” of the voice recognition phone system. The thing where you have to talk to a machine that pretends to be a person.
Technology is nowhere near the level where a computer could actually have a voice conversation on the phone without people realizing it’s a computer.
So clearly they aren’t trying to trick us, I hope.
When I had to call Comcast today (yes, Comcast) the voice asked me something and refused to connect me to an agent until I answered.
When I answered, it said “one moment while I look that up.”
Off to a bad start. It’s a computer. A computer can “look up” a piece of simple information faster than it can… tell me that it’s looking it up.
But then it got worse.
While it was “looking up” my account, it PLAYED A RECORDING OF THE SOUND OF SOMEONE TYPING.
Who is this for? They intentionally slow down the process to introduce mindless nonsense like that.
Pretending to “look things up.” Pretending someone is typing. Even a person would use a damn mouse and not type out hundreds of keystrokes!
I’ll bring this rant to a close. Maybe this is just me. Maybe stuff like this doesn’t bother you.
But to me, in addition to being painfully stupid, it also clearly indicates that I’m dealing with a business that doesn’t get it.
One with customer service that’s stuck in the last century. One where it’s going to be a huge hassle to get anything done.
Don’t make this mistake in your business.
It happens when complexity gets out of control. When “customer service” becomes more important than customer experience and customer retention.
When the people making the decisions are too disconnected from the impact of those decisions.
Exactly the kind of thing my system shows you how to avoid.
Get the details here: https://gumroad.com/l/rkbth/VIP
— Mark
