Why Do Companies Stick with Voice Menus? 260
eliot1785 asks: "We've all had to put up with this at one point or another — you call a company for customer service or tech support, and rather than getting traditional touch-pad menu options, you encounter an annoying system that wants you to 'just say' how it can help you. Invariably, the system fails to understand your input, or picks up background noise or coughs as intended inputs. After a few failures, you have to press '0' to speak with an operator. Why do companies think that customers like these voice menu systems? Is there any research to suggest that they do, or are companies simply embracing the systems because they are new technology? More importantly, when will they realize that the systems don't work and go back to the traditional touch-pad menu option systems?"
Because often then work... (Score:5, Informative)
a lotta stuff comes into play (Score:5, Informative)
ennunciation at times helps.. pausing between #'s helps.
I know a lotta eastern europeans, they all scream bloody murder when they try...
you could always refer to http://gethuman.com/ [gethuman.com] if you just can't take it
The most popular part of the gethuman website is the gethuman database of secret phone numbers and codes to get to a human when calling a company for customer service. (See also our general tips.)
A little story for y'all (Score:5, Informative)
"Welcome to bla bla... to speak with someone regarding covered facilities press 6"
"If your Insur-ID begins with a W, press 1"
"If the W is followed by three numbers and a hyphen or dash, press 1"
"Please type in your complete Insur-ID. You can enter letters by-"
"If this is an emergency, please hang up and dial 911."
"Please hold."
"Due to unusually high call volume [8am saturday], we are experiencing higher-than-usual wait time. Your expected wait time is Two. Minutes. And. Five. Seconds. Please continue to hold."
"Thanks for using Enormous insurence inc, may I please have your date of birth, Insur-ID...."
That's as verbatim as I can remember it. Seriously. Can you imagine an elderly person trying to do this... up hill, both ways, with a rotary phone, in the snow?
skip them all (Score:5, Informative)
I lump the voice and keypad menus in the same boat -- I just want to talk to a
person as quick as possible.
Re:marketing (Score:3, Informative)
Understanding human speech is quite difficult. Directory assistance requires the computer to parse pretty much arbitrary words, which is the most difficult task in understanding speech--you have an entire lexicon and can't weight any set of words much. On the other hand, if you're creating an automated flight booking system, then you only have a limited range of vocabulary that you even need to consider. That is much easier--or at least, you get a much greater confidence in your accuracy.
Re:They like the money they save. (Score:2, Informative)
http://www.research.att.com/index.cfm?portal=27 [att.com] ( scroll down to 1992 ) and look for VRCP.
Re:Because often then work... (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Pulse Dialing (Score:2, Informative)
Re:I hate them even when they do work (Score:2, Informative)
Without Simone's routing we would have spent an incredible amount of time just transferring between representatives, and the temp reps would have never worked.
Re:Usually works for me (Score:4, Informative)
Aren't landing fees supposed to cover that?
I always tought that ATC was the biggest government expenditure related to air travel.
Re:Real question? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:This works (Score:4, Informative)
[in dutch] if you would like to speak in dutch, say "vlaams"
[in french] if you would like to speak in french, say "français"
I say "fuck you" rather strongly
the machine responds in english, "please wait while we connect you with an operator"
It seems they haven't completely translated all their voice prompts yet. At least english language profanity is built into the system. I've tried a number of french and dutch curse words, but the shortcut doesn't work.
the AC