It seems everytime I call a company, I get a message something like the following:
“Thank you for calling the Acme Company. Please listen carefully as our menu options have recently changed.”
However, the options have been the same for quite some time. My own company has this type of message, and it has been at least two years since they were changed. Is there a general rule as to when people can get rid of that message?
Perhaps they define “recently” in geological terms.
“Please listen carefully as our menu options have changed during the past epoch. Press δ to hear this message in Babylonian.”
I figure this falls into the “stock answer” category - along with “it will be a 15-20 minute wait” at any restaurant you visit.
My guess is that by adding that in, people think the automated menu might actually be useful, and are more likely to sit through the thing rather than frantically hitting 0 or # which is what I do the instant I hear a recording start.
That’s a peeve of mine. If many of your customers are calling for the first time, why do they need to be told the items have been recently changed?
Also, if many of your customers call once ever several months, why do you expect them to remember what the items are?
It makes as much sense as if your word processing program kept telling your the menu items have changed every time you click on them. I don’t think they’re needed at all.
/hijack
Sorry, but something made me chuckle when I saw your user name and something about menu options changing. I thought maybe this was a thread about dieting.
For “me too”, press 4.
For “same here”, press 7.
You don’t need to sit through the options at all.
Wow, runner pat, what a cool link!
Thanks!
There’s a cheat sheet out there with many well known numbers, along with the instructions on how to get to a human.
Of course, many of them say to do exactly what you already do (0 at each prompt).
ETA: I guess I’m not the only satisfied user of gethuman.com!
My WAG is that if they do change the menu options people who may have a tendency to follow a known path of menu options may wind up in the wrong place. For example, if you know the number pattern is 1-4-2-2 (English -> Tech support -> Software -> Existing ticket), but then they change the “Tech support” option to 3, then the whole path is screwed up. The person who can’t find the “any” key may wind up talking to someone in the billing department if he doesn’t take the time to listen to the menu options.
Speaking of waiting for recordings, this morning I got a call from a bill collector. Picked up the phone, and recordinglady said that it would just be a short wait to speak to a representative. I hung up. They called back 20 minutes later with a real person, asking about a late payment on a credit card that I applied for, received, looked at the interest rate and limit, and cut up without activating. They then activated it anyway, billed the annual fee to it, and then a late fee.
Everything’s taken care of now, though.
As others have said, for frequent callers who have the pattern memorized, the notice that the options have changed may be useful.
From the practical standpoint of the business, once they make the effort to change the menus, and include the notice that the menus have changed, they hardly ever reprogram the menu system until they want to change it again. And then, guess what? The menu options have changed.
{peers out from under a rock}
Actually, I program a voice response system . . .
. . . put those pitchforks DOWN! And the torches too, while you’re at it. Thank you.
Where was I? Oh, yes. With our system, the default menu header is “Please listen carefully to the following menu of options.” When we actually do have a modification, it’s “The menus have changed. Please listen carefully.” Which header plays is controlled by a pair of dates in a table (I hate hardcoding things like that). The duration is determined by the customer, and depends on the type of change — f’rinstance, a modification which affects the option that lets a caller hear his/her paystub information will play “the menus have changed” through at least one pay week. The same date range controls whether the caller can skip the header by pressing a key right off the bat.
But our system may be an anomaly, and in fact I have a feeling that a great many voice response applications are put together by semi-trained planaria (with apologies to any planaria who may be reading this). I have yet to encounter the apocryphal US Gummint phone menu that says “If you have a touch tone phone, press one; if you have a rotary dial phone, press two” — but I have seen (heard) plenty of apps that, to my critical ear, sound as if the designer was a blindfolded chimp throwing darts at a board. One of my favorite misfires, which I have run into depressingly often, requires the caller to provide his/her identification and PIN before checking to see if the desired party or function is available. Hate that one. It may not register to the average caller, but to me it’s lazy, rude and dismissive.
Perhaps when I have the time (i.e., when I’m retired and/or dead) I’ll make a concerted effort to collect and document an IVR Design Chamber of Horrors. Og knows they’re legion. But it would have to be for my own amusement: I doubt that most people would believe it.