You know how when you call the customer service number for a company, it is rarely answered by an actual human. You usually have to navigate through a couple of menus. For example, if you called Catalog Co., you might encounter a menu that says something like: “If you would like to place an order, press #1. If you would like to check on an existing order, press #2. If you would like to order a catalog, press #3. For all other inquiries, press zero, or stay on the line.” Even though people complain about them, the menus are here to stay. They’ve saved the companies money, and for the most part, they’re pretty convenient to use.
But, more and more, I’ve noticed that these menus don’t ask you to press a button. They ask you to say something. Like “If you would like to place an order, say ‘place an order.’” Some still have push-button options, but most of those that I’ve encountered don’t.
Why have companies been changing over to this system? What advantages does it have over the push-button menus?
They appear to work significantly less well than the push-button systems.* I have never heard anyone say a positive word about them. I imagine it was quite costly for the companies to change over to them. So what gives? Why did they do it? Was it just a massive screw-up in assessing customer service preferences? Are there people out there who really do like them? Do they have advantages that are not immediately apparent?
The only thing I can think of is that these systems make it even harder to find a real live human to talk to, saving the company payroll. But is that savings enough to justify the customer dissatisfaction?
I despise the voice recognition system, and absolutely refuse to talk to one. I hate hate hate having to say “Yes. Yes! YES!! No. Psoriasis! PSORIASIS!” into the phone. It doesn’t seem to understand me or anyone I’ve ever talked to about it. I’d imagine it’s even worse for people with accents or speech impediments. Like so many other people, I often have to make some personal business phone calls at work, and while it’s easy enough for any of us to converse on the phone without being overheard, it’s very easy to hear someone shouting “foreclosure department!” into the phone.
One of the insurance companies I deal with started using a voice “recognition” system about 2 years ago. It took six months for them to iron out the kinks. Part of the ironing out was to add the ability to use the keypad. No matter how “normal” I tried to sound, the system could never understand what I wanted (and it wasn’t just me). Prior to the system, I could rapidly input my information. Afterwards, I ended up spending 3-4 times as long for each call.
When I asked them why they did this, they claimed that people preferred it to a machine. It apparently made people feel like they were talking to a person even though they knew it was just a recording.
I can’t vouch for the accuracy of al the information contained in the page, but if you want to talk to a human you might take a look at this site, which claims to give the procedure for finding a customer service person at a whole bunnch of companies and utilities.
The problem I have with the voice response phone systems is the idea of possibly having to practically shout both my Social Security number and my username and password for whatever account I’m trying to access. Not really a good thing if I’m calling at work in my open-plan office at lunch or calling from a payphone or cellphone on the street…
A bit of a WAG, but I would guess that it has something to do with both the rise in cell phone use and the rise in use wired and wireless headsets for them. Offering hands-free communication, voice recognition systems would cater to that same market by allowing callers to continue to keep their cell phone in their pocket/pouch/wherever.
Have you ever watched someone on a cell phone negotiate a touch-pad number system?
Get the number. Hold the phone three feet away from the face. Find and touch a number. Bring the phone back to the ear. Hold the phone three feet away from the face. Find and touch a number. Bring the phone back to the ear. Hold the phone three feet away from the face. Find and touch a number. Bring the phone back to the ear. Hold the phone three feet away from the face. Find and touch a number. Bring the phone back to the ear. Hold the phone three feet away from the face. Find and touch a number. Bring the phone back to the ear. Hold the phone three feet away from the face. Find and touch a number. Bring the phone back to the ear. Hold the phone three feet away from the face. Find and touch a number. Bring the phone back to the ear. Hold the phone three feet away from the face. Find and touch a number. Bring the phone back to the ear. Hold the phone three feet away from the face. Find and touch a number. Bring the phone back to the ear.
I don’t know, I have an accent, and I was driving on the freeway with the top down and the FedEx(or was it UPS) was still able to recognize my tracking number correctly on the first try. That was pretty convinient because I sure as hell can’t dial in a tracking number while driving 80mph all that safely. Same thing with 511 traffic information…
I’ve never had a problem with a modern voice recognition system on a customer service queue in my life. Maybe you guys are just not speaking naturally, when I just came to the states, people would realize I was a foreigner and enunciate and speak louder. That made them incredibly harder to understand, because I just never had an opportunity to learn over-enunciated loud slow english before. Neither has the machine, since it is most likely trained on a natural language dataset.
I talk to the machine as if it was a California native right in front of me, and no trouble whatsoever. Could it be regionalisms? There’s some regional accents in the world that are just impossible to understand to an untrained ear. Yeah it’s english, but it sounds as undecipherable as Greek when a Scottish person is talking.
Best advice, try speaking like you just fell out of Vancouver, pacific northwest or san francisco and speak naturally, quickly, and softly, and the machine will understand you.
I’m pretty sure the main goal with voice recognition is to make it more user friendly. It sure sounds like it would be more user friendly, doesn’t it? Just talk to the machine like you would a live human! Of course, like many things, it didn’t seem to turn out that way, at least not yet.
Ditto. I’m sure that it would have been possible for people working in my office last year to have gotten my SSN, credit card numbers, “secret question” answers, and a whole lot more. And yes, I was calling at lunchtime, not when I was supposed to be working.
Eh. I mentioned this in another thread: I recently used one of these systems to put in a lot of personal information about myself while calling a Credit Reporting Agency number to opt-out of prescreened credit offers. My last name is uncommon and humans mess it up with 110% frequency; the first line of my address is 35 characters long (using some abbreviations); etc. etc. It got everything down picture-perfect. I was really impressed.
My last experience with a voice recognition system came to a sticky end when after successfully navigating to a third set of choices (which seemed to be virtually the same each time) I released some pent up air which had been building up during the procedure, causing the robot woman to start the process again because it didn’t understand my response.
I dislike these multi choice questions when phoning some company or other because most of them here are charged at premium rates and I always get the feeling that they try to get you on the line as long as possible because they get a cut of the profits from the call charge.
Count me in on the “pretty impressed” group. The only one of these voice recognition things I ever call is Amtrak, to check the status of the train that comes through here (train nut).
“Jule”, the automated Amtrak voice, is able to recognize me through a fairly deep Texas drawl, and even when I use words she didn’t tell me to use. For example, she’ll recognize “yes”, obviously, but also “yeah” and “uh huh”.
I think I’d get annoyed if every place I called had one of these things, though.
Headset.
I have a couple. One for in car that is an earbud and suspended mic, and at home a nice cover both ears and boom mike [um, plantronics, it is dangling from my shelf bracket.]
I detest having to snuggle a phone when I am on the computer, so I have always had a headset for my cordless, and have always used one on my cell phone.
While I’m also a BIG fan of headsets, the voice recognition software is a godsend for trying to enter data while driving. I drive a stick, and though I use a headset, it still can be difficult to grab the phone, look at the keypad, and enter then numbers, all while trying to drive safely.
With the VR systems, I’ve never had a problem getting them to understand me, but I’ve trained most of my New England accent right out. They just plain make things easier.
I do, however, fully believe that there should be a top level “Press or say Zero to get an attendant” in case these systems don’t work for you.
All systems should also be capable of recieving both voice input, and touch tone input.
