I wish my suck-ass telecom used GetAHuman. Phone hell is among the worst 21st C.E. annoyances. I also wish the phone loops played better music, and varied the automated messages. One can only hear so many minutes of easy listening “jazz” constantly interrupted with a Prozac-dosed announcer proclaiming, without supporting evidence, 'your call is important to us, please continue to hold“, before the tears of rage ooze free.
WSJ.com - Stuck in a Phone Tree: Some Companies Try To Make Escape Easier
A Web site that made a splash among consumers by helping them bypass companies' automated phone systems is now leading an effort from the corporate side to ease the problem -- and with some heavy-hitting backing.The creator of Gethuman.com, which lists ”cheat sheets“ for hundreds of corporate phone trees, Tuesday will announce a campaign that encourages companies to ease the aggravation of using their so-called phone trees. Companies agreeing to follow the ”GetHuman Standard“ guidelines -- which include allowing callers to press ”0“ or say ”operator“ to reach a live person, and to press ”#“ or say ”repeat“ to replay a menu -- will play a special tone, or ”earcon,“ at the beginning of the call, signaling to consumers that the company is in compliance.
Microsoft Corp. and Nuance Communications Inc., both of which sell automated-phone-system platforms and services, have agreed to support the standard as a recommended practice for their clients. Gethuman.com is the outgrowth of a blog by Internet entrepreneur Paul English. The blog listed ways to get around a handful of phone trees and grew into a popular Web site by taking submissions from volunteers who tested different methods.
I strongly feel a better organized, more efficient, and customer oriented ”phone tree“ is a completive advantage. Those who figure it out will have greater customer retention, those who make it a hassle to communicate with their customers will lose them.
Tags: Techno-babble, /Telecom
Billie McHugh, a 47-year-old artist in Cincinnati, says any relief would be welcome. She says she once tried to get through to Northwest Airlines for five hours, trying several times each hour to find a person who could help her with a question about her frequent-flier points. “I kept calling and calling, and every time you're forced to go through several prompts. Then when you think you're making headway, it says, 'Due to our call volume, please call later,'” she says. But Ms. McHugh says she has doubts about the effectiveness of any new laws, because the “do not call” lists that became law in 2003 weren't totally effective. “While I've gotten fewer phone solicitations, I still get calls,” she says.Phil Doriot, managing director of CFI Group, a company that helps clients optimize customer satisfaction, says the communication gap between businesses and their customers has widened over the past several years because of the outsourcing of customer-service staff and cost-cutting.
Meanwhile, consumer satisfaction with calling help lines to reach customer service “bottomed out” in the past year, he says. CFI's customer surveys have shown that the percentage of which calls are resolved in the first attempt made by a customer -- a factor closely linked with customer satisfaction -- has gone down. And though some companies have rethought the issue, Mr. Doriot says many still have not made decisions to address complaints.
I just wanted to say thanks for the link to GetHuman. I've never heard of that site before, but I'm definitely going to check it out now. I've spent more than my fair share of time trying to figure out those automated phone systems and wondering if anyone was ever going to pick up on the other end. Looks like that site will save me some time!
Have you heard about www.nophonetrees.com?