Press 1 if you’ve ever been trapped in phone-system hell when calling the customer-service line of a bank, cell phone company, credit card company or (ahem) government agency:
“Your call is very important to us. So important that this automated attendant will help navigate you through our system. If you are calling to compliment us, press 1; if you want to spend money with us, press 2; if you want to pay your bill, press 3; if you have some other need, press 4. To continue, please enter your account number followed by the # sign. If the sum of the last three numbers you pressed is greater than 10, press 6 now. If not, press 7. To return to the main menu, press *. Sorry, you have failed to properly navigate the phone system. Thank You for calling. Click.”
Next week, October 7-13, is National Customer Service Week. I would love to see the occasion marked by the elimination of those annoying and seemingly endless automated phone messaging systems. I’m not the only one.
The overwhelming popular website gethuman.com, reveals the single best method to cut through the automation systems of more than 500 companies in order to speak directly with a real, live human being. For example, to reach an operator at a major bank, just press 0#0#0#0#0#0#. To reach a human at a leading consumer electronics retailer, press 111## and wait through three prompts asking for your home phone number. It would be funny if it weren’t so depressing – and such bad business. (See this New York Times article: “Your Call Should Be Important to Us, But It’s Not”). Although we have a short automated greeting at Matchmaker Logistics, within seconds it connects our callers to one of our team members. One of our customers, Amanda, said it best: “Each employee at Matchmaker Logistics…(has) strong communication skills. When I do have an issue, the person that answers the phone will handle it; I don’t get passed on to someone else.”
Comedienne Lily Tomlin created the character of a telephone operator named Ernestine, a condescending telephone operator who generally treated customers with little sympathy. She once performed this Saturday Night Live skit:
“Here at the Phone Company, we handle eighty-four billion calls a year. Serving everyone from presidents and kings to the scum of the earth. So, we realize that, every so often, you can’t get an operator, or for no apparent reason your phone goes out of order, or perhaps you get charged for a call you didn’t make. We don’t care!
Watch this… [ she hits buttons maniacally ] We just lost Peoria.
You see, this phone system consists of a multibillion-dollar matrix of space age technology that is so sophisticated–even we can’t handle it. But that’s your problem, isn’t it? So, the next time you complain about your phone service, why don’t you try using two Dixie cups with a string? We don’t care. We don’t have to. We’re the Phone Company.”
In 1970, AT&T offered Tomlin $500,000 to play her character Ernestine in a commercial. Tomlin declined, saying it would compromise her artistic integrity. Wouldn’t it be great if CEOs everywhere declined automated phone systems to enhance their business integrity?
Reach out and touch someone this weekend,
~Bob
