kevinc@uunet.uu.net> (10/18/90)
After reading all of the postings on use and abuse of {Music,Silence,
Hawk} On Hold, voice menu systems, etc., I get the distinct impression
that (some of) the readers of this forum may not realize why companies
use these features.
Bottom line: companies that receive incoming calls (for sales,
service, or whatever) want callers to stay on the line. Any time the
customer can't get through, his resentment meter inches ever closer to
the red line. MOH makes *most* people feel more comfortable on the
line, so they wait longer before hanging up. Voice menu systems, if
done correctly, give better response time to the customer AND reduce
costs for the call center (by automating simple tasks, like account
balance lookup). It is for these reasons (and others) that companies
use services such as MOH (NOT because they have "callous disregard for
their customers").
Call center managers *do* view callers who hang up while on hold as
lost revenue. One of the main features of an automatic call
distributor (ACD) is the statistics the system keeps on "avg. time on
hold" and other such categories - the manager of the call center uses
this info to make decisions about staffing, performance, etc.
If you're bothered by the way a company handles (your) incoming calls,
let them know what you want! If they get enough complaints [and have a
decent ACD! :-)], they will be more than happy to change. I'm sure not
all companies are sensitive to the needs of their customers; any
*successful* company, IMHO, *must* be.
Kevin Collins | Aspect Telecommunications
USENET: ...uunet!aspect!kevinc | San Jose, CA
Voice: +1 408 441 2489 | My opinions are mine alone.dattier@ddsw1.mcs.com (David Tamkin) (10/19/90)
Maurice Baker wrote way back in volume 10, issue 716 (ok, I'll get caught up on reading some day soon, honestly): | OK ... how's this for an idea: | If you're going to be "stacked up" on hold for any length of | time, the answering system (tried to choose a suitably generic label) | should give you the choice of: [selections deleted] The customer service lines at CompuServe now offer a choice between recorded CompuServe usage tips and music while you're on hold. It's a start. One presses a tone digit, as in Mr. Baker's suggestion, to express one's choice. David Tamkin Box 7002 Des Plaines IL 60018-7002 708 518 6769 312 693 0591 MCI Mail: 426-1818 GEnie: D.W.TAMKIN CIS: 73720,1570 dattier@ddsw1.mcs.com
stanley@uu.psi.com (John Stanley) (10/20/90)
Kevin Collins <aspect!kevinc@uunet.uu.net> writes: > If you're bothered by the way a company handles (your) incoming calls, > let them know what you want! If they get enough complaints [and have a > decent ACD! :-)], they will be more than happy to change. I'm sure not > all companies are sensitive to the needs of their customers; any > *successful* company, IMHO, *must* be. Candidate for abuse of ACD and phone system in general: A large, book-o-the-month club has just billed me for a book not ordered nor sent. I call the number on the invoice for customer support. A recording answers: "Thank you for calling XYZ company. Our new customer service number is xxx yyy-zzzz." This wasn't the telco intercept, it was an XYZ recording I had to pay for. Ok. Called xxx yyy-zzzz. ACD answers: "If you are calling about paying an invoice, please call aaa bbb-cccc. If you are calling for customer service, please press 1 now." Now, it seems to me that an ACD with ONE entry in the menu is pretty worthless. It does nothing but eat up my time. (In essence, after the billions of $$ of telco equipment sorted out the ONE place I wanted to talk to, the XYZ company has a 5k$ box sorting its incoming calls into one basket.) It also seemed pretty un-friendly that I could have been stuck calling, not the one number published on the bill, but THREE numbers to get to talk to them. And least friendly of all was that the XYZ company answers the first number instead of having a non-supervising telco intercept. I tried explaining this all to the supervisor. She gave me a number that was, according to her, a direct incoming line to customer support. It was the same as the ACD number. Will they change? I doubt it. Not many people would realize they had to pay for the first intercept. Nor would they realize the stupidity of one-item ACD's. So most customers wouldn't complain.
bill@uunet.uu.net (Bill Vermillion) (10/22/90)
In article <13816@accuvax.nwu.edu> dattier@ddsw1.mcs.com (David Tamkin) writes: >Maurice Baker wrote way back in volume 10, issue 716 (ok, I'll get >caught up on reading some day soon, honestly): >| OK ... how's this for an idea: >| If you're going to be "stacked up" on hold for any length of >| time, the answering system (tried to choose a suitably generic label) >| should give you the choice of: And one I tried gave me a choice of leaving voice mail, or holding. Since the item was important, I was on site at a customers location with a hardware problem, I pushed the button that said I would wait. Every thirty seconds or so I would get a message about everyone being busy, etc, and THEN about three minutes into holding, it automatically dumped me into voicemail, and the ONLY choice was to leave a message, or hang up. That is WRONG in my book! Bill Vermillion - UUCP: uunet!tarpit!bilver!bill : bill@bilver.UUCP
msb@sq.com (Mark Brader) (10/22/90)
> M[usic] O[n] H[old] makes *most* people feel more comfortable on the > line, so they wait longer before hanging up. ... Why, then, is it that I don't seem to know any of these "*most*" people? Mark Brader, SoftQuad Inc., Toronto, utzoo!sq!msb, msb@sq.com
gkj@cunixb.cc.columbia.edu (Gregory K Johnson) (10/24/90)
In article <13930@accuvax.nwu.edu> msb@sq.com (Mark Brader) writes: >> M[usic] O[n] H[old] makes *most* people feel more comfortable on the >> line, so they wait longer before hanging up. ... >Why, then, is it that I don't seem to know any of these "*most*" people? I think music-on-hold performs one valuable function. It indicates to you that you haven't been disconnected (or, as is often the case, it lets you detect when you have been disconnected). Greg
dhesi%cirrusl@oliveb.atc.olivetti.com (Rahul Dhesi) (10/25/90)
>> M[usic] O[n] H[old] makes *most* people feel more comfortable on the >> line, so they wait longer before hanging up. ... So is that why music on hold also invariably includes commercials on hold? Rahul Dhesi <dhesi%cirrusl@oliveb.ATC.olivetti.com> UUCP: oliveb!cirrusl!dhesi
wb8foz@mthvax.cs.miami.edu (David Lesher) (10/25/90)
MOH also covers up crosstalk. In law offices, especially, it can cause real problems for party X to overhear party Y. Of course attorneys seem to be the WORST people for discussing sensitive material on cellphones, too.