The last time i used a VRU was when i called to pay a DirectTV bill for a friend. The system was simple with a step by step process. They gave the option of how much to pay, which was what was needed. At the end, they gave a confirmation number. Overall, they received an A.
The last encounter i had with a companys phone system was very unpleasant. The company was Sallie Mae (my financial aid loan paople) and the phone system made me very frustrated. I called and then was prompted to "hold on the line", after waiting a few minutes I heard the sound of a phone hanging up and low and behold, I had been hung up on. I immediately called back and the same thing happened again, I waited a few minutes then got hung up on. I then called a specific person by extension, who happened to be away from her desk, and was told by the voice response unit to press 0 to speak to an operator. I pushed 0 and instead of getting an operator, I got the same persons voicemail. I tried again pressing 0 and got the same voicemail. Eventually, I got to speak with someone and I got all of my business straight, but the raod there was very long and frustrating. If I were to give this company a letter grade based on their phone system, I would give them an F for sure.
Cox Communications - I have to give them a C because their automated system for tech support forces you to go through this long computer interaction to troubleshoot common problems to speak to a human. There was no exit. You must go through it. I just needed to give my MAC address for a cable modem I had bought. Once I got to a human, it took 5 minutes to fix. Instead I was in their system for almost half an hour.
I can see their system helping reduce the number needed to talk to a human, but there needed to be exit path that didn't need to be in there loop.
The last time I had to call a company was a few weeks ago. Unfortunetly, I had to sit through 45 agonizing minutes, listening to the automated voice from Cox Cable. My cable and internet wasn't working, so I had to listen to the automated voice tell me what I need to do, and if that didnt work, I had to listen to it some more. Finally, I hung up the phone, and pressed a different key, something I knew I could get a real person to talk to. I told him about my problem, he said,"Hold on a second sir, I'll get you to the right department". And can you guess who he sent me to? The same automated voice that I had to listen to before. I give this campany a "D" if not fail them altogether. If they could just have a person help you from the get go, and then send them where they need to go, it might go a little smoother.
My last experience with a Company's operated system was with a my crappy insurance company, Blue Cross Antham. The amount of numbers you have to punch in before you get to talk to a human is insane...and then by the time you are done actually putting in your group code and all the rest of the info you have to go and tell all the same information to the person when you finally do get to speak with someone. What was the point of pounding all that information into the keypad on my phone if it's not going anywhere to begin with?!?
If I where to grade Verizon Wireless on their customer service on the phone I would have to give them a C. Most of the time when I call I state my problem and they come up with something totaly different then to what I was asking. So I get no help. But everyone once and a while I get someone who knows what they are doing and I my problem gets solved. But normally it is that they dont know what they are doing because the never seem to be able to answer my questions. I called one time just to see how much my bill was because the website was down and they couldnt tell me they said it looks like $22 but I am not sure. There is no way it could be $22 when my plain is $60 a month. I dont think half the people working there know what they are doing expecially if they can not tell me how much my bill is. Oh the bill turned out to be $68.87 by the way. (lol)
I honestly rarely ever encounter problems with companies with bad phone technologies unless it is the IRS. Occasionally I will have an issue with Cox communications, but I always make it a point to know where customer service centers are, and I try to first resolve my issue online, then if that fails I go to the customer service center. This is not because I have had some horrid experiences with telephone technologies that need improvement or bad operators or even rude representatives. The issue is I do not like the phone. I do not like being forced to press numbers and wait. I want a face, I want a name. Therefore I do not use the phone if possible.
Based on my experienced on telephone technology usage with the alarm company. From there customer service side I gave them a B grade due to there service for the simple fact that they do not have a 24 hour service. Once past working hours, the only personnel that you'll be able to contact is the dispatcher. But there service when it comes to alarm wise is good but the point is I just wish you'll be able too talk to someone when it comes to you billing statements or what not past normal working hours from 8am-5pm, instead of the dispatcher intercepting the calls from the customers. So for their grade is a B for their products is good, but there customer service at past working hours is not so good.
My bank, Suntrust, has a VRU system. It's fairly efficient, it gives me a list of options, with numbers on the phone correlating to those options. I acess the information I need pretty fast, and at any given time.
The last time I was on in contact with someone about technical assistane was when I tried to reach Verizon about an internet issue it was allright. By the time I actually got with a customer service rep I figured out what my issuse was while I was on hold for over 45 minutes. The represenice was great and it was a simple fix on his end. It just took so long to get through and listening to that hold music was rather painfull also. The biggest advantage was that I got a support representive that spoke english. I would give them a D on wait time but at least a B or so on the representive portion.
T-Mobile: i would give them an A because i haven't had any problems with there phone service and i have been with them for awhile now. Its usually quick and easy and they fix any problems that they do have with ease.
Cox Communications The grade i give them is a D. You give them all of your personal info in the beginning of the call. Then you are switched to the appropriate service department. After waiting however long the (IVRU) comes along and tries to help and if that doesn't help you are then transferred to a rep. that's all fine and good, but they start by asking you all the questions you answerd at the beginning of the call
A lot of the larger companies, like Cox or VISA, like to use automated voice recognition/response (AVR). It is OK, and when everything goes smoothly the first time its great. But if I make a mistake, most systems I've encountered do not have a way to fix it. So I would give the technology a B.
My telephone encounter was with Sprint, and it was using VRU technology. I thought it was pretty good, because you could tell the system exactly what was needed and it would take you to that point, by using your cell phone number. If you needed to speak to a person, you just press “0”. With some other companies that have the VRU, they still give you the run around, and when you press “0” the system will say incorrect entry. So, overall I gave this company an “A” for their VRU technology.
I called cox not that long ago and I would at best give them a C and that is more or less to be nice. They have this "virtual girl" you have to talk to for like half an hour before you get to speak to a real person. This may be good for the very very inexperienced but I know enough not to need to listen to all that just to get some specific information. Its very redundant. I am assuming it cuts down on the cost but can not honestly imagine that this "virtual girt" gets much solved.
I am going to be grading my water company. Ista International. This assignment says to give them an A, B or C depending on how well i belive that they percieved the service to be. Well i belive that Ista should recieve a D possibly an F. Every month over and over it becomes atleast a 30 min even on paying my water bill. You can not pay with a credit/debit/check card over the phone. You must pay with a check, which is much more complicated. There is also a $5.00 fee for paying over the phone. If for some reason or another there is a problem with the bill it takes a life time to wait to speak with someone. There is no short cut button to speak with an actual english speaking person. Ha.
I use a IVR almost everyday at my work place. I work at RK Chevrolet and anytime you need to contact GM for a question you have to jump through a few hoops to get there. Since I use it so much it becomes second hand but to someone inexperienced it can be quite a daunting task. The minimum buttons to press to get a human is a least 10-15 thats including dealer codes and passwords. Once your into the system it takes a while to hear all the options then if you press the wrong button there is no going back, hang up and try again. At least when you do talk to someone you get an idetification number so next time you call they know who you are. All in all its a good system but takes some getting used to.
I called COX Cable about hooking up my internet because I moved and wanted it transfered over. After 3 phone calls they finally said a tech was on the way. He was supposed to show up around 3 pm. At 5:30 pm I went out and he called 5 minutes afterwards. Anyways,I rescheduled and he showed up a few days later and just flipped a switch. Done. Internet on now. I gove COX Cable a 'C' mainly because they made me go through all the automatic options first. "Press 1 for this, press 2 for that..." I hate that stuff...
if i had to grade AOL techincal support, it would be in the C range. There was a time when i had a very successful call and the woman was very helpful and very patient. However, i called for different reasons two other times and these guys just kept pausing and putting me on hold for like 15 mins at a time. You could hear them sighing and smacking their lips because they couldn't get right to the problem. I'm pretty much my own troubleshooter now or at least i think so. lol. But that's my grade on AOL overall
My most used call center is cox. They have always been very helpfull and resolved every problem I have ever had. For me the cox call center is very helpful. Now for the good stuff. I call AOL to cancel my service. 30 mins after I am take to a real person I am still waiting for a conformation number. Well I was pissed by this time and asked her if she was useing AOL and that was the reason I was canceling. SLOW SERVICE. She hung up on me. My worst was calling linksys. I am not even going to get into the meny conversations i had with them but I ended up calling cox and they resolved my router problem. after my talks with linksys if the operator does not speek english I ask for someone else. I refuse to talk to someone over in India to fix my problem.
My experience with a telephone operator was pretty sad. As I was trying to pay for my Sprint bill through the phone, it begins to ring and I reach the operator. I put in the correct information for my account and they can't locate my bill. I hung up and tried again. I did it very slow and made sure I put the correct information. Still, they couldn't locate my information. So I finally choose to speak with a customer representative. I talk to her and let her know I am trying to pay a bill. She tries to pull up my account and is very concernced that she can't. Im pretty much fed up with everything so I say forget it and she states "you are better off just going to a Sprint store to pay for your bill." I was aggrivated because I wasted time just bothering to try to do it through the phone thinking it would be more convienent. The grade I would give them would be a very low D.
My recent encounter was with HP company. I called to resolve a problem with installing a software that made my laptop act crazy. They gave me procedures to fix the problem. I immediatly followed the process, but it was taking too long. So they had me call them back many times with a PIN # so that I didn't have to restate the problem. The only thing I didn't like about their call center was that I had to say my name, address, and laptop model several times before I could talk to a technical person. Even though it took hours to fix my laptop, their attentive of helping me was excellent. I would rate the technical support team an A-.
I make a point of not using IVR's of any sort. I've worked on installing them so I know how they work and how well they DON'T work. However while at Radio Shack I had many encouters with the IVR for Virgin Mobile Pre-Paid Wireless. Its name is "Simone" and she's really uncooperative. she sounds friendly at least but that just seems to make people more angry when all they want to do is talk to someone and find out "I just put time on my phone why can't I make phone calls?" The answer is usually very simple like "you've already talked through your $20 of airtime and you'll need to put more money on your phone if you want to continue talking." but Simone won't be disuaded easily. One has to go through 3 submenus of options before you can say "Live Representative" and hopefully one doesn't have a thick accent. Simone doesn't understand thick accents, slurred speech, drawled speech, toothless speech, or slow speech. Simone DEMANDS clear, concise, enunciated speech! Though Virgin Mobile is aimed at the 11 - 22 year old demographic they forgot to tell Simone this. While Simone sounds hip and up-beat and positvely cool, she doesn't understand slang, jive, or ebonics. Consequently most people who talk with Simone simply hear "I'm sorry. I didn't understand what you said. Lets try again. For your balance just say..." When people ask me about Virgin Mobile I always tell them, "Don't do it."
I actualy did have a VRU moment. It was with Cox also with changing out a modem. I on the otehr hand had no problem getting through to an operator the first time and getting business done within 5 minutes from begining of the call.
The most recent experience i had with a phone system was with t-mobile phone system. I HATED IT! I just wanted to pay my bill,the stupid system kept telling me about my balance i knew my darn balance thats why I was calling so i could pay my gosh darn bill! It did't allow me to pay because I think it was having some type of god forsaken problem! So i just had to go to the T-mobile store to pay the bill.
Several Companies I have called, the computer will asy for your account number. then when a person answers they ask for your account number again. I thought the computer would give the number to the person but that is not how it work as I was told by one customer service rep. So now I put any number in when asked by the computer because its not going to do anything for me any how.
31 comments:
The last time i used a VRU was when i called to pay a DirectTV bill for a friend. The system was simple with a step by step process. They gave the option of how much to pay, which was what was needed. At the end, they gave a confirmation number. Overall, they received an A.
The last encounter i had with a companys phone system was very unpleasant. The company was Sallie Mae (my financial aid loan paople) and the phone system made me very frustrated. I called and then was prompted to "hold on the line", after waiting a few minutes I heard the sound of a phone hanging up and low and behold, I had been hung up on. I immediately called back and the same thing happened again, I waited a few minutes then got hung up on. I then called a specific person by extension, who happened to be away from her desk, and was told by the voice response unit to press 0 to speak to an operator. I pushed 0 and instead of getting an operator, I got the same persons voicemail. I tried again pressing 0 and got the same voicemail. Eventually, I got to speak with someone and I got all of my business straight, but the raod there was very long and frustrating. If I were to give this company a letter grade based on their phone system, I would give them an F for sure.
Cox Communications - I have to give them a C because their automated system for tech support forces you to go through this long computer interaction to troubleshoot common problems to speak to a human. There was no exit. You must go through it. I just needed to give my MAC address for a cable modem I had bought. Once I got to a human, it took 5 minutes to fix. Instead I was in their system for almost half an hour.
I can see their system helping reduce the number needed to talk to a human, but there needed to be exit path that didn't need to be in there loop.
The last time I had to call a company was a few weeks ago. Unfortunetly, I had to sit through 45 agonizing minutes, listening to the automated voice from Cox Cable. My cable and internet wasn't working, so I had to listen to the automated voice tell me what I need to do, and if that didnt work, I had to listen to it some more. Finally, I hung up the phone, and pressed a different key, something I knew I could get a real person to talk to. I told him about my problem, he said,"Hold on a second sir, I'll get you to the right department". And can you guess who he sent me to? The same automated voice that I had to listen to before. I give this campany a "D" if not fail them altogether. If they could just have a person help you from the get go, and then send them where they need to go, it might go a little smoother.
My last experience with a Company's operated system was with a my crappy insurance company, Blue Cross Antham. The amount of numbers you have to punch in before you get to talk to a human is insane...and then by the time you are done actually putting in your group code and all the rest of the info you have to go and tell all the same information to the person when you finally do get to speak with someone. What was the point of pounding all that information into the keypad on my phone if it's not going anywhere to begin with?!?
If I where to grade Verizon Wireless on their customer service on the phone I would have to give them a C. Most of the time when I call I state my problem and they come up with something totaly different then to what I was asking. So I get no help. But everyone once and a while I get someone who knows what they are doing and I my problem gets solved. But normally it is that they dont know what they are doing because the never seem to be able to answer my questions. I called one time just to see how much my bill was because the website was down and they couldnt tell me they said it looks like $22 but I am not sure. There is no way it could be $22 when my plain is $60 a month. I dont think half the people working there know what they are doing expecially if they can not tell me how much my bill is. Oh the bill turned out to be $68.87 by the way. (lol)
I give them a D by the way...
I honestly rarely ever encounter problems with companies with bad phone technologies unless it is the IRS. Occasionally I will have an issue with Cox communications, but I always make it a point to know where customer service centers are, and I try to first resolve my issue online, then if that fails I go to the customer service center. This is not because I have had some horrid experiences with telephone technologies that need improvement or bad operators or even rude representatives. The issue is I do not like the phone. I do not like being forced to press numbers and wait. I want a face, I want a name. Therefore I do not use the phone if possible.
Based on my experienced on telephone technology usage with the alarm company. From there customer service side I gave them a B grade due to there service for the simple fact that they do not have a 24 hour service. Once past working hours, the only personnel that you'll be able to contact is the dispatcher. But there service when it comes to alarm wise is good but the point is I just wish you'll be able too talk to someone when it comes to you billing statements or what not past normal working hours from 8am-5pm, instead of the dispatcher intercepting the calls from the customers. So for their grade is a B for their products is good, but there customer service at past working hours is not so good.
My bank, Suntrust, has a VRU system. It's fairly efficient, it gives me a list of options, with numbers on the phone correlating to those options. I acess the information I need pretty fast, and at any given time.
The last time I was on in contact with someone about technical assistane was when I tried to reach Verizon about an internet issue it was allright. By the time I actually got with a customer service rep I figured out what my issuse was while I was on hold for over 45 minutes. The represenice was great and it was a simple fix on his end. It just took so long to get through and listening to that hold music was rather painfull also. The biggest advantage was that I got a support representive that spoke english. I would give them a D on wait time but at least a B or so on the representive portion.
T-Mobile: i would give them an A because i haven't had any problems with there phone service and i have been with them for awhile now. Its usually quick and easy and they fix any problems that they do have with ease.
Cox Communications
The grade i give them is a D. You give them all of your personal info in the beginning of the call. Then you are switched to the appropriate service department. After waiting however long the (IVRU) comes along and tries to help and if that doesn't help you are then transferred to a rep. that's all fine and good, but they start by asking you all the questions you answerd at the beginning of the call
Posted by Trix at 8:16 PM
A lot of the larger companies, like Cox or VISA, like to use automated voice recognition/response (AVR). It is OK, and when everything goes smoothly the first time its great. But if I make a mistake, most systems I've encountered do not have a way to fix it. So I would give the technology a B.
My telephone encounter was with Sprint, and it was using VRU technology. I thought it was pretty good, because you could tell the system exactly what was needed and it would take you to that point, by using your cell phone number. If you needed to speak to a person, you just press “0”. With some other companies that have the VRU, they still give you the run around, and when you press “0” the system will say incorrect entry. So, overall I gave this company an “A” for their VRU technology.
I called cox not that long ago and I would at best give them a C and that is more or less to be nice. They have this "virtual girl" you have to talk to for like half an hour before you get to speak to a real person. This may be good for the very very inexperienced but I know enough not to need to listen to all that just to get some specific information. Its very redundant. I am assuming it cuts down on the cost but can not honestly imagine that this "virtual girt" gets much solved.
I am going to be grading my water company. Ista International. This assignment says to give them an A, B or C depending on how well i belive that they percieved the service to be. Well i belive that Ista should recieve a D possibly an F. Every month over and over it becomes atleast a 30 min even on paying my water bill. You can not pay with a credit/debit/check card over the phone. You must pay with a check, which is much more complicated. There is also a $5.00 fee for paying over the phone. If for some reason or another there is a problem with the bill it takes a life time to wait to speak with someone. There is no short cut button to speak with an actual english speaking person. Ha.
I use a IVR almost everyday at my work place. I work at RK Chevrolet and anytime you need to contact GM for a question you have to jump through a few hoops to get there. Since I use it so much it becomes second hand but to someone inexperienced it can be quite a daunting task. The minimum buttons to press to get a human is a least 10-15 thats including dealer codes and passwords. Once your into the system it takes a while to hear all the options then if you press the wrong button there is no going back, hang up and try again. At least when you do talk to someone you get an idetification number so next time you call they know who you are. All in all its a good system but takes some getting used to.
I called COX Cable about hooking up my internet because I moved and wanted it transfered over. After 3 phone calls they finally said a tech was on the way. He was supposed to show up around 3 pm. At 5:30 pm I went out and he called 5 minutes afterwards. Anyways,I rescheduled and he showed up a few days later and just flipped a switch. Done. Internet on now. I gove COX Cable a 'C' mainly because they made me go through all the automatic options first. "Press 1 for this, press 2 for that..." I hate that stuff...
if i had to grade AOL techincal support, it would be in the C range. There was a time when i had a very successful call and the woman was very helpful and very patient. However, i called for different reasons two other times and these guys just kept pausing and putting me on hold for like 15 mins at a time. You could hear them sighing and smacking their lips because they couldn't get right to the problem. I'm pretty much my own troubleshooter now or at least i think so. lol. But that's my grade on AOL overall
My most used call center is cox. They have always been very helpfull and resolved every problem I have ever had. For me the cox call center is very helpful. Now for the good stuff. I call AOL to cancel my service. 30 mins after I am take to a real person I am still waiting for a conformation number. Well I was pissed by this time and asked her if she was useing AOL and that was the reason I was canceling. SLOW SERVICE. She hung up on me. My worst was calling linksys. I am not even going to get into the meny conversations i had with them but I ended up calling cox and they resolved my router problem. after my talks with linksys if the operator does not speek english I ask for someone else. I refuse to talk to someone over in India to fix my problem.
My experience with a telephone operator was pretty sad. As I was trying to pay for my Sprint bill through the phone, it begins to ring and I reach the operator. I put in the correct information for my account and they can't locate my bill. I hung up and tried again. I did it very slow and made sure I put the correct information. Still, they couldn't locate my information. So I finally choose to speak with a customer representative. I talk to her and let her know I am trying to pay a bill. She tries to pull up my account and is very concernced that she can't. Im pretty much fed up with everything so I say forget it and she states "you are better off just going to a Sprint store to pay for your bill." I was aggrivated because I wasted time just bothering to try to do it through the phone thinking it would be more convienent. The grade I would give them would be a very low D.
Kristine =)
My recent encounter was with HP company. I called to resolve a problem with installing a software that made my laptop act crazy. They gave me procedures to fix the problem. I immediatly followed the process, but it was taking too long. So they had me call them back many times with a PIN # so that I didn't have to restate the problem. The only thing I didn't like about their call center was that I had to say my name, address, and laptop model several times before I could talk to a technical person. Even though it took hours to fix my laptop, their attentive of helping me was excellent. I would rate the technical support team an A-.
I make a point of not using IVR's of any sort. I've worked on installing them so I know how they work and how well they DON'T work. However while at Radio Shack I had many encouters with the IVR for Virgin Mobile Pre-Paid Wireless. Its name is "Simone" and she's really uncooperative. she sounds friendly at least but that just seems to make people more angry when all they want to do is talk to someone and find out "I just put time on my phone why can't I make phone calls?" The answer is usually very simple like "you've already talked through your $20 of airtime and you'll need to put more money on your phone if you want to continue talking." but Simone won't be disuaded easily. One has to go through 3 submenus of options before you can say "Live Representative" and hopefully one doesn't have a thick accent. Simone doesn't understand thick accents, slurred speech, drawled speech, toothless speech, or slow speech. Simone DEMANDS clear, concise, enunciated speech! Though Virgin Mobile is aimed at the 11 - 22 year old demographic they forgot to tell Simone this. While Simone sounds hip and up-beat and positvely cool, she doesn't understand slang, jive, or ebonics. Consequently most people who talk with Simone simply hear "I'm sorry. I didn't understand what you said. Lets try again. For your balance just say..." When people ask me about Virgin Mobile I always tell them, "Don't do it."
I actualy did have a VRU moment. It was with Cox also with changing out a modem. I on the otehr hand had no problem getting through to an operator the first time and getting business done within 5 minutes from begining of the call.
The most recent experience i had with a phone system was with t-mobile phone system. I HATED IT! I just wanted to pay my bill,the stupid system kept telling me about my balance i knew my darn balance thats why I was calling so i could pay my gosh darn bill! It did't allow me to pay because I think it was having some type of god forsaken problem! So i just had to go to the T-mobile store to pay the bill.
Several Companies I have called, the computer will asy for your account number. then when a person answers they ask for your account number again. I thought the computer would give the number to the person but that is not how it work as I was told by one customer service rep. So now I put any number in when asked by the computer because its not going to do anything for me any how.
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