Oh boy, does voice recognition drive me crazy and raise my blood pressure! (Ironically from calling to Blue Cross! Do they know they're making their subscribers sicker?)
Voice recognition never seems to work for me. I don't like it at all. I complain to the human who eventually answers and they say "oh yes, we have a lot of complaints on that". Well, get rid of it, damn it!
I don't mind--as much--keying an ID into a Touch Tone phone, at least that's hopefully clear to them what I'm doing.
Back in the 1960s the movies/TV had spoofs of future life, with frustrated people trying to order a computer to do something. I think "Get Smart" made fun of instructions that the computer or robot (Hymie) took absolutely literally instead of figuratively. (e.g. "Run this through the computer" meant he would physically run through the computer gear.) Other sci-fi movies did so, sometimes with seriously unpleasant results. Generally, they mocked the upcoming technical revolution.
And they were right. Reciting your 16 digits is harder than tapping them in, especially when the machine comes back "Sorry, I do not understand" five times and you go crazy trying to get through it.
And the S.O.B. administrators won't let you enter zero to get a human, they freakin' force you to go through their hell.
These same $&*%# people encourage you to use the web, but they screw you over on that as well. It's not a simple enter your name and secret code and you immediately get the data you need. No, they want to sell you something first, then make you agree to some microfine- print contract, etc. I tried getting on to a credit card company but I rejected the terms of their contract which authorized lots of spam from them. No matter, I still get the spam and they tell me there's nothing we can do about it. No, I can't change credit cards because they all credit cards come from very few places these days.
Very frustrating.
I suspect the managers who order these irritating systems don't have to use them themselves, they have executive assistances or spouses to worry about that sort of thing.
To all who replied, thanks for your resp> The problem with all of these automated systems is that it is much
Skills that most non-programmers don't have. Indeed, in today's highly automated environments, many programmers don't have a good understanding of error conditions and the necessity to trap EVERYONE of them properly and provide a smooth exit, not just an infinite loop.
In the old days, sloppy programming would result in a program abend, a phone call in the middle night, and an angry boss the next morning. After one such experience, programmers were damn careful to be sure it didn't happen again.
In my programs, I always put in provision for "soft failures", situations I never expected to occur, but if they did, at least I'd stop running with displays of all relevant data and the circumstances. These traps came in handy years later when someone changed a program improperly and caused a logical error. The information displayed by the trap enabled debugging to be quick.
In other words, if a customer is to be transferred to another number, what happens if that other number is closed? Is there a voice mail? What happens if the voice mailbox is full? What about emergency calls?
In the old Bell System days trained Bell professionals would work with businesses to set up their call distribution systems. Not only the hardware, but the operating techniques as well. Bell wanted its customers to give good telephone service and provided support and training to make that happen. It might even have been free.
That was a service Bell provided to large business customers, they would audit response times, service quality, etc.
Years ago I believed that basic telephones would all come equipped with a little keyboard and simple small screen so that customers could use the keyboard to enter things like their name and address or more sophisticated answers than could be keyed in a pad. The read out screen would provide answers, maybe a small adding-machine type printer along with it. I still think this would be a very useful feature. But the Internet came along and all data entry goes via that.
The problem is that using the Internet for many tasks is like using a tractor-trailer to deliver one pair of shoes. Complex overkill and way too much overhead.
While some businesses took a long time to answer their phone, a great many stores and movies answered it promptly with a knowledgeable human able to answer questions quickly. I figured that telephone keyboard would be easy and quick to get movie information, for example.
Unfortunately, it is impossible for us individual consumers to complain.
Companies are huge today, thanks to mega mergers. If you can reach a human, they're thousands of miles away in a boiler room being watched by the millisecond. They have a quota to meet. They and their immediately supervisors care about that quota and perhaps sales, not complaints, esp about something they have no control over.
If you write a traditional letter these days it will be ignored.
Years ago companies once maintained public relations people who actually read complaint letters and tried, within reason, to resolve the complaint if practical. They would track complaints and suggestions and pass them on; the company would respond if practical. With megamergers and huge companies, the volume of complaints is too high and such support people are expensive. So letters are ignored.
They do have an assembly line operation for email complaints, but they basically send you a coupon for your next purchase and a gushy form letter, but no effort at all to resolve your concerns.
If you don't like a food product, there's a good chance a "competing" label is actually now owned by the same company thanks to mega mergers. So, you can't just change brands anymore.
[TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Lisa is correct; there is little or nothing of significance any of us small, individual users can do. Except one thing -- we can attempt, for whatever it is worth, to use the Ayn Rand philosphy: go on strike, use as little of the world's resources as possible, live in a small, rural area of Kansas or Colorado or perhaps Montana, deal with them when we absolutely have to and get by on our own when that works instead. Long time ago I quit dealing with _any_ of the large communications carriers for example. Not a one of them has the morals of a snake. Withdraw your talents and abilities; give them only to people YOU choose. I live in a very small town, pinch my pennies very closely in a small number of stores (mostly family owned, local businesses), am _very careful_ with whom I give my money. Refuse to be part of their system as much as you can. That is the only way to do something you (and maybe one or two other people) consider 'significant'; _refuse to play along with them._ Won't it be great to see Iran/Iraq/whoever eventually get enough of us and bomb us back into the stone-age? And you know they probably will some day. It will force many others to come around to our way of thinking. And what's with whoever decided last week to poison all the dog and cat food? These harmless little creatures! PAT]