Some pretty good science fiction books and movies have started with a person waking up in an abandoned hospital. Complex. Confusing. That’s how I approach phoning any large consumer call center. I treat it as a bizarre game. It goes without saying that I’ve already exhausted searching their web site.* When you call, the first challenge is attempting to make the interactive voice-response (IVR) system to do your bidding. Different ways of asking or pressing menu options sometimes works. When it does, that’s victory. When that doesn’t work, the next challenge is to get past the IVR to an agent. (Some companies like Comcast make this very difficult.**) Before you can actually speak with an agent, you’ll hear a recording asking how ignorant you are: “Did you know that many tasks can be accomplished on our website?” Finally, speaking with an agent is often like finding the one other person in the abandoned hospital. They are just as dazed and confused as you are.*** They might know about secret rooms (transferring your call), but some of these secret rooms have no answers.
Drowning in Data, but No Insight
What’s the solution? This is yet another example of most companies are drowning in data gathering but don’t know how to use it. Somehow the Pareto Principle has fallen out of favor. We’ve all experienced it. It’s where we get the phase “80/20 rule.” Roughly 80 percent of your effects/defects come from 20 percent of causes/problems. But it’s hard to imagine that any customer call center has an analytics team who can identify customer call trends. Take for example that recording pleading with you to visit the website. Would it be so hard to ask: “Have your been to our website? Press 1 for yes, 2 for no.” This data point would provide a powerful spotlight on content that’s missing or too difficult to find on the website. It would also treat callers with the basic dignity that you don’t think of them as totally ignorant Luddites.
Are you wondering if I think any call centers are very good? Yes, there are excellent call centers. The United Healthcare call center is at the top of my list. The first contact people are off-shore, but very well trained and professional. Insurance benefits in the US are very complex. The first contact people know how to patch in the right people if needed.
The Uncanny Valley is Horsefeathers
Are you wondering if I know about “the uncanny valley”? Certainly I do. However, the American Express virtual agent suffers from a totally different problem than “the uncanny valley.” They gave the system a human name “Ava” and licensed the absolute best speech production and recognition. It’s my opinion that Ava has the conversational skills of a 13-year old boy barely passing his English class.**** The sound of the voice is young, perky, and professional, but “her” responses are fiercely tactical and argumentative. My guess is that they delegated the “conversation” scripts to one of the most junior people on the team. Would anyone buy at $400,000+ Lamborgini Aventador and then let a 13-year old drive it? It surely seems like hundreds of thousands were spent on the best technology, but human implementation was done on the cheap. ::sigh:: This is not the first time I’ve noticed something like this.
Notes
*I once overheard a frustrated coworker on the phone with a call center agent say: “I’d rather shower in prison than use your call center, but I have no other choice.” Yikes (and LOL).
**With Comcast IVR, if you’re calling from a mobile phone and ask to speak with an agent, the IVR terminates the call. (!?) Then an SMS chatbot initiates a session. Of course, the chat bot can only handle the same exact things as the IVR, so eventually the chat bot has to give up and put in a queue for a call back by a human agent. Again, would it be so hard to ask: Have you tried using our website? 1 Yes. 2 No.
***While I respect that being a call center rep is not easy, they are often at the mercy of scripts which – wait for it – are no better than the content on the website. Also, a very large company will have separate departments to deal with different types of problems. I call these “secret rooms” because you cannot call them directly. You must go through a first-contact agent.
****When Ava first launched, “she” was programmed to start the session by introducing herself: “Hello, I’m Ava…” However if you responded with “Hi, I’m Andrew,” the response was “I’m sorry, I don’t know what you mean.” In normal, human conversation when someone introduces themselves, the other person should, too. The correct response should have been: “Hello, Andrew. How may I help you today?”