What we think...
How many of you get frustrated at having to go through national (or international) call centres to get through to the local branch of your bank? That is, if they allow you to speak to the branch in the first place!
I read an amusing story the other day about an elderly lady trying to phone the local branch of her bank. She was put through to a call centre in Asia, where the salesman tried his very best to persuade her to buy one of a whole suite of products, which she politely declined. Eventually he gave up, and asked her how he could help. “I was just wondering,” she said, “if I’d left my gloves on your counter.”
Shawn Callahan
November 20, 2006
8:19 pm
My frustration on the phone is those treaded call trees. You know the ones, ‘press 1 for this, the 2 for that,’ and it always seems to take forever. Well I came across a company that does the dialing for you and when that have a human on the line they give you a call. It’s called Bringo. I wrote about it here: http://www.anecdote.com.au/archives/2006/09/a_craving_for_t.html
Alison Esse
November 22, 2006
8:02 pm
Sounds like a great idea! The worst experience I had with these automated voice systems was trying to book cinema tickets last weekend via a voice detection system. Unfortunately the detection system didn’t recognise the the words so we went round and round in circles until I sent a ranting e-mail (again, automatic response) to their customer service dept on the cinema company’s website. I got a call from a very apologetic young man within 10 minutes! Apparently they had been inundated with complaints about the system and were thinking of giving up on automation altogether. Fight hard enough against it and you can make a difference!
Paul Honeywell
November 22, 2006
9:58 pm
I bank in a town called Towcester, pronounced like “toaster”. Try asking to speak to that branch via some poor soul in a call centre 5,000 miles away! I failed miserably. I ended up sending a fax to the branch asking them to call me back…