The New Guy, it seems you have issues with my statements and might question my experience. Rather than pick your statements apart and retorting, I feel it would be much more clear for you to ask me some questions, which I will answer with %100 honesty.
You’re angry, jaded and misinformed. These things tend to undermine credibility. Speaking of which, we know that you’ve called one of these systems, do you have any other pertinent knowledge?
“Old and stupid” people aside, alot of our IVRU errors are caused by background noise, accents, and address changes that have to be verified by a person (lest we send oxycontin to some random dude).
I await your questions.
BTW, Mama Zappa I am willing to solve your problems with our company personally. Let me know, and I’ll make my contact information available.
Damn, you sure have your panties in a twist about this. Calm down, for real.
I’m not making excuses, why on earth would I need to make excuses for something that is not of my doing. I’m offering suggestions as to why these voice recognition systems aren’t going to be the one stop shop of customer service at all times. Damn.
Also, the rest of the calls that aren’t IVRU successful are going to a live person. If they don’t get anywhere at all and the person doesn’t reach a person or get their question answered (gets disconnected/disconnects on purpose or gets dead air) that is an “abandoned call” and that has it’s own percentage called an abandoned rate. I have no idea how much of the 20% remaining is abandoned, I dare say less than 2% because that’s pretty standard for call centers.
Pardon me all to hell for trying to get involved with your A to B conversation you were having with the previous poster, I wasn’t aware it was a private thing, I was simply offering suggestions.
When, exactly, did I question your experience? I’ll need a quote on that, please.
Well, I DID ask you some questions in post #30. Maybe you could just respond to that, and disregard the sidetracks by Daisy Mae. Mainly, I was curious to know exactly what they mean by “80% success rate”. How do they define “success”?
Nonsense. If anyone seems angry, it’s you and Daisy Mae, especially Daisy Mae. In regard to what you posted, I asked you some QUESTIONS, so I don’t see how you can say I’m misinformed. You haven’t answered the questions yet. In regard to Daisy Mae, I’m only responding to what she posted, so if those responses are misinformed, it is because she provided the misinformation.
Please keep your assumptions about my state of mind to yourself.
Sorry, don’t know what you’re driving at.
I was only responding to what you said. In your post #25, you described a situation where customers must remain silent and turn off their TV in order to get to a live rep. That’s what I was referring to. Why are you and Daisy Mae now trying to switch the subject? We weren’t TALKING about things that interfere with the system understanding people’s voices, we were talking about people having to remain silent in order to “trick” (for want of a better word) the system into switching to a live person. YOU are the one who brought it up; I was only responding to you. Quit trying to turn this around.
I’m sorry that Daisy Mae hijacked the discussion and escalated the rhetoric, but please just take a deep breath and take a step back. It’s quite unneccesary for you to be nasty with me.
I don’t have a problem with you getting involved per se; it’s just that you have misconstrued everything I was saying, tried to answer for dnooman when I asked him questions, AND made a false implication that I was accusing dnooman of “making excuses”, when it was YOU who I said was making excuses. Now you have dnooman screaming at me about supposedly questioning his experience, which I never did. If it’s all the same to you, when I ask someone to clarify what he said, I’d like to have the person who made the statement clarify it, not you.
You’re already trying to defend this 80% thing when dnooman hasn’t even answered by questions yet. Could we AT LEAST wait til we agree on what we’re even talking about before you start trying to bust my balls about it?
You are coming off like an absolute jackass. Assumptions about your state of mind? One only needs to read what you’ve written here to see you’re quick tempered and devoted to nitpicking this topic to the end.
Misinformation and trying to hijack the discussion??!?? What on earth are you talking about?!? You act as if I burst in on your discussion with Dnooman. It was YOU who addressed ME in post #31 and I answered you with my own personal experience with this company’s IVRU. I answered you calmly and rationally. I was not “blaming the customer” as you have accused. I was only offering my view on their customers I worked with on a daily basis. Not blame, simple reasons why some calls may fail. The IVRU is just the first line of customer service, the 80% taken care of hang up and go about their day. The rest of the customers move on to customer service. I can honestly see why at first you thought the other 20% were just fucked but once that was established, was it really necessary to keep on bullying through with the attitude??
You really need to read the responses again if you’re saying you’ve been addressed with a nasty tone. That’s hardly the case and you’re taking this to the far reaches of West Hell. Instead of exchanging information with someone, you’re ready to prove everybody wrong based on your interpretation of a few statements you’ve read here, at least one of which was misunderstood.
Dnooman has (again) offered to calmly discuss the points with you and you want to point fingers again and keep on with the attitude. Jesus christ, if this is how you have a discussion about a recording, I’d hate to see you discuss a topic near and dear to your heart. Take it down a notch or ten, how about it?
Let me retract one thing. I said I wasn’t angry, but I AM angry. I’m not angry at anyone in this thread, but I’m angry in general about companies that blatantly disregard the needs of their customers just to make a few extra bucks of profit. So you were right about that. I’m not “jaded” or “bitter” about it; just angry, as any consumer would be about any collossal failure in the marketplace. Now, I don’t know yet if dnooman’s* company is doing that, so I’m looking forward to his explanation in further detail about exactly what this “success rate” they’re touting really means, and if I misinterpreted the earlier explanation, I’m anxious to know that as well.
Good because at this point, I’m starting to think that’s all you understand. You’ve misunderstood calm and rational, apparently bitchy is easier consumption.
You know what’s really funny? I just noticed this: In the part where you quoted me and then wrote “snipped for outright lunacy and babbling”, the part you cut out was the exact part where I very coherently explained how and where you had misconstrued my point, and even gave the post # I was referring to. You’d obviously rather stick your fingers in your ears than actually admit that you made a mistake.
I was not trying to do anything to your “point” at all. I was simply discussing my experience with said customers regarding the machine. That’s all, nothing more. I wasn’t trying to second guess you, change your question/answer, or take away your birthday Sparky. I was trying to elaborate on the benefits/drawbacks to the automated system.
If you really see these back and forth answers as nasty, bitchy, and hurtful perhaps the Pit isn’t the place to hang out. This conversation has been simply wholesome and quaint compared to what it could be.
I’ve already admitted that I could see where one miscommunication would come about, you’re not about to concede anything so discussing this futher with you is about as constructive as spitting in the wind. I have no interest in having a pissing match with you when all you want to do is argue semantics and guess at my intentions. It’s hard to believe this is the result of trying to give exampled of why something happens. You’d think I’d have insulted your mother with the way you’ve behaved.
What on earth are you talking about? Completely misconstruing my point, and then deliberately omitting my explanation when you quote me and substituting the word “lunacy” for my coherent point, is not “semantics”.
Yeah, fuck you. You reap what you sow. I wouldn’t be talking about other people’s behavior if I were you. You’re acting like I murdered your mother. Why don’t you just get the fuck out of this thread and quit mucking it up with your tirades?
Urk… that’s scary. Most plans I’ve heard of have a provision for one or two fills of a scrip locally, for emergency medications or for when you’re starting up a new long-term scrip - as in, you get a month supply locally while you mail off your paperwork for the 3 month supply.
What if you needed antibiotics for, say, a case of pneumonia, or inhalers for an asthma flareup? Easily dealt with if you can get your medication today, but if the new coverage forces you to either pay cash (and those meds are $$$) or do without for a week or more, seems like they’d have a dramatic increase in hospital admissions for untreated pneumonia. This is not cost-effective.
Regarding mail-order prescription services in general: I love 'em. If you’ve got any kind of chronic medical condition, they’re great. You’re not running to the local pharmacy every few days. You’ve got a 3-month supply of your stuff. I was using mail-order pharmacies years before they were mandated by my insurance.
Dnooman - Chill - My gripe was not in fact with the pharmacy services. I routinely use that company’s mail-order services and website with no problem. And in fact in this case, the error was not made by the company, but by the prescribing physician. Once I got hold of a human, my questions were resolved quickly and courteously.
My beef was that, when I tried to work within the “system”, the “system” made me sit through multiple repetitions of a canned script long after it was clear the system could not help me. I was not watching “The Price Is Right”. I was in a quiet office area, with very little background noise. Anything I tried, including the pound key, “speak with representative”, “prescription error”, failed utterly. It wasted my time and made me angry enough to Pit the experience.
When technology makes it harder to conduct business, that technology needs to be rethought or scrapped.
Will I change providers over this? Well, as it’s provided by my employer, I can’t. If I could, I’d consider it. I might not anyway - there’s a long history of acceptable service and who’s to say things would be better at another provider?
General commentary on voice recognition systems: I really don’t like them. I feel like an idiot speaking to them. I have trouble getting them to recognize what I want (and I don’t have any unusual accent, or high-pitched voice, or trouble speaking in a normal tone of voice). Maybe they save a bit of time over the older “For assistance with xxx, press 1; for assistance with yyy, press 2” (an annoyance in and of itself, but at least you have an idea what the set of “right answers” may be).
No guinea pigs have been harmed in the composition of this post
%80 success rate in this case means that 80 out of every 100 people who call up successfully complete their business with the IVRU. The other calls either get routed to a CSR, the caller hangs up, or in some rare cases the IVRU hangs up on the person.
O.K., so what you’re telling me is that 1 out of 5 calls fail to get what they want, and then any number of things might happen to them. Now I’m just asking, so don’t jump all over me yet, but shouldn’t they be looking at that 20% (who I’m guessing are the people who are not simply calling to re-fill a prescription, but to resolve a problem, mixed in with some people who are just unable to navigate the VRS), and see what’s happening to them? We have not only the OPs account (which is admittedly only anecdotal evidence), but your own words:
I guess I’m unsure where you’re coming from. At first I thought you were agreeing with the rest of us that it’s a bad system, but lately you seem to be defending it. I’d just like to know whether you think the fact that so many of your calls start out with people complaining about the call-routing system, coupled with your own admission that you have to take the ridiculous step of muting your phone just to trick the system when you use it, maybe should alert the designers of this thing to look into whether it’s as great as they think it is. I mean, that’s great that it works 80% of the time when you don’t need to talk to a live person, but the PROBLEM seems to be when you DO need a live person. THAT’S when it seems to be failing, at least from what I’m hearing in this thread.
Perhaps they could acheive 80% AND have a reasonable option to get to a live CSR (i.e., something not involving having to turn off your TV and sit in silence; something a little less degrading, like pushing “O” for example). Or perhaps they could achieve 75% and have that option, which might be a good trade-off if it means not having a good portion of your customers completely exasperated. Surely there’s a balance between number-crunching and providing good service for their customers, isn’t there? I mean, they theoretically could employ NO CSRs AT ALL, and save even more money, but they obviously chose not to do that.
I understand their reasoning; they think that forcing people to go through a maze to get to the CSR is going to force more people not to try for the CSR. But it sounds to me like they need to follow up a little more on those who don’t make it, because it sounds like they’re really failing those people. Wouldn’t you agree?
I’m sure that you’re right, and the people that run this * 33billion dollar a year company* are wrong. They might like your input. I’m guessing they would tell you to fuck off.
Your combative nature is not conducive to reason, so I won’t bother trying.
You hate these systems, we get it. You can’t understand why they are almost neccessary, that’s clear. While you’re on you crusade of righteousness, how about lowering our gas prices?
I dunno. I’d have to actually talk to a live person for them to do that. I’d probably be on hold for 1/2 hour and then just get a recording telling me to fuck off. (And honestly, why exactly should I care how much money they make? Is that supposed to justify something?)
Seriously, though - sorry you don’t want to discuss it. I’m also sorry people can’t express an opinion around here without being accused of being on a “crusade of righteousness”. I believe you filtered my post through your own defensiveness and hostility. I said nothing personally insulting to you, yet you act as though I have insulted you. You initially said yourself that the phone system was no good, yet now you take umbrage at my criticism of it. If my criticisms are so wrong, why can’t you refute them?
I’d honestly like to know what is was about my LAST post that offended you so deeply. Maybe you could pick out the worst sentence or two so I can understand what was so horrible about it that made you react this way?
(And honestly, why exactly should I care how much money they make? Is that supposed to justify something?)