Re: "Please Enter Your ID Number" So We May Ignore it

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!

(el snippo)

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.

My experience is that whoever sets up the IVR matters and how they set it up. Many don't have a clue on what's logical and what's not. As an example, Rogers/Fido in Canada decided that they'd set up "Andrea" to take care of customer functions. When they first got "Andy" up and running she was just plain stupid and for just about anything and everything the response was pretty much "I didn't get that" and you'd scream normal things like "operator", "assistance", "agent" or any number of things and you'd still get "I didn't get that." Evidently someone in the back finally got word that how they'd programmed the IVR was just awful and they finally used normal things like allowing you to press 0 to talk to a real person and used terminology that someone would typically use such as "operator" rather than what they had [agent]

On the other hand a really good implementation of an IVR would have to be what T-Mobile chose to use. All responses are what a normal person would use and if it cannot understand you it doesn't make you endlessly try other words it will simply transfer you to a real person to speak to. My gripe with IVRs is that IVRs are pretty much useless if you are making a call and there's lots of ambient background noise. Even a loud clapping sound is enough to confuse the IVR. Bottom line is how the IVR and phone "tree" is set up. It can be logical or it can be as illogical as possible. All my bank cards have crappy phone trees that do not have any logic at all. I complain to the person finally taking my call, but I'm guessing that it will not do any good at least with banks and big corporations like Citi, Bank One, etc.

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.

Cox technical support for HSI recently rolled out a voice response troubleshooter that is absolutely useless and only serves to frustrate.

One of the first things its says is "Hmmm, I can't see your modem. Try unplugging it, wait twenty seconds and then plug it back in. Say 'continue' when you're ready."

Since I've already tried that little tech support trick, I just start screaming "AGENT" about twenty times and that finally gets the system to connect me to a human.