Excellent idea.

Wonderful idea. About a month ago I called the customer service number for my HMO about a mail-order prescription issue. Turns out that was a separate number for pharmacy service, not at all connected to main customer service, but the rep who answered the phone stayed on the line with me until the call was completed. But even he had to listen to all of the prompts before selecting which option to punch on his dialpad. What a waste of time for both of us to have to listen to the menu, when he was calling another branch of his own company!
A phone tree would have saved a lot of time for both of us (don't get me started on how much time it would have saved if my HMO had posted the phone number for the pharmacy service on its web site, too, so I could have called directly and eliminated the first CSR).

I think that all companies with those darned things should make all employees use it at least once. Most seem to have no idea how many choices and how complex the trees are. I use a cheat sheet for IRS...all the options and all so I can dial exactly the one area I need

Yesterday I called a company whose phone tree went something like:
If you want ACCOUNTING, then
press 1 for this
press 2 for that
If you want SALES, then
press 3 for this
press 4 for that
If you want SUPPORT, then
press 5 for this
press 6 for that

When I made a second call to them, and after listening to the options for ACCOUNTING, I pressed 6. The stupid system came back with "I'm sorry but you've made an invalid selection." The same thing happened after listening to the options for SALES. Gggrrrr!

My second comment is, why do they ALL waste my time by starting with the informational message: "Listen carefully to this message as some of our options have recently changed"? Since they all say it, all of the time, it essentially becomes meaningless.

I don't want the villagers at my door with torches and pitchforks, so I'll just be "Anon" for this post.

What you're calling a phone tree, in the business we call "interactive voice response". I program these systems. 14 years ago, when the place I was working at decided to implement their first such system and chose me to be lead programmer, I thought "oh boy, here's my chance to make one of these that doesn't suck." Oh, for the heady days of being young and naive.

As a programmer, I get little to no input on WHAT the scripts say. I just get told what options go where and oh, by the way, do it by the end of the week.

Big giant huge companies that spend all kinds of time and money designing their WEB user interface put no time at all into designing a consistent CUSTOMER interface, across all communication/access methods. IVR design is left to whomever comes along, and nine times out of ten, that's "Mary, who has some free time this week." And she says "I heard this on Company X's phone system." Well, gee, Mary, did you LIKE the way Company X's system worked? No? Then why are we doing it here?!

I try, I really do. Once in awhile I get to do some user-interface design. Then I get pushback from my fellow programmers saying "oh, but that will be so hard to program." It's a no win situation.

So, fellow humans -- I apologize. I really do care and I'll keep trying to push for what is right, but it's a Sisyphean task. I could go on for days . . . I'd probably be happier as a Starbucks barrista.

P.S. @Pattie - the pharmacy benefits are probably handled by a completely separate company, even if they answer the phone with the name of your HMO. But yeah, the number should be on the HMO website.

Yeah, and the phone company, of all of things, has the most frustrating automated voice response system of them all. Of course, if you know to say "attendent" (or almost any obscenity in an angry tone of voice) you can get to a human directly.

In reference to Tina @8:20

I think it would be a great thing to have ALL of the senior staff (VP's included) try to solve a problem with their company WITHOUT giving their real name to a CSR. I have grown weary of phone trees (push 1 for this) AND especially the voice response systems. I hate having to say loudly, of course, one and two word phrases to try to get the system to respond. And, you can't get around the voice prompts.

I understand what 'Anon' the system programmer goes through.

And, it does absolutely no good to get upset with the representative you are talking with about the voice/phone system. They have no way of submitting complaints because that choice is not on their computer screens. I don't know how you get to the system who could make a difference.

'Anon' are there any ways for the customer to influence the phone system?

The biggest problem with your phone tree guide online is many of these phone systems will not respond to your keypad or voice input until the message for that level is finished. So even if you know the correct numeric path to get where you want to go, you still have to sit and wait to enter the number at each level until the automated message is finished.

Great article!! Thanks!

@blasher - the only way I know for a customer to be heard is to try to get the contact information for a top executive and write or call that person, stating specifically that you will be taking your business elsewhere because of the poor design of the automated phone system.

Once upon a time, I worked for a credit card company (no names, but what's in your wallet?) whose IVR system was mentioned rather prominently in an article in this very newspaper (IIRC, the headline was something like "Phone system holds customers hostage"). That *finally* caught the attention of some of the higher-ups who decided that maybe that Anon guy down in IT had some good points.

Some changes were made, and it was a little better. Most importantly, a little more attention was paid to designing the systems. However, I don't know what that company's systems sound like now, the corporate barbarians sacked me a while back.

I needed support with my Windows Live One Care subscription and when I got on line with a live person (only had to wait abt 2 min.) she took info, then handed me off to a technician. After about 2 hours he couldn't fix it, but said they would call me back! and they did at the time I asked. I second try didn't fit it, so the persons said they needed to "research" my problem and call me back.
They did, and this guy said it was a "winsock" problem, took control of my computer for a long while and it got fixed. I had to reboot for the guy, but they called me back at my convience each time. Wonderful.
Sam Atex

Hi everyone. Shai Berger here, co-founder and CEO of Fonolo, which was mentioned in the article. There are some excellent points made in the comments. This is exactly the user pain we are trying to solve with our service.

Something the article didn't mention is that Fonolo lets you "bookmark" spots in phone menus that you frequently call. Then you can "deep dial" to those spots with one click.

I encourage everyone to sign up for our beta program at www.fonolo.com. We'd love to get your feedback.

Thanks!

So you hate Chatty Cathy too! I have made a cheat sheet on occasion to save time. The absolute WORST is the voice-only system used by Verizon, pushing any button on the phone will not get you out of jail. Ivan Seidenberg, can you hear me now ?

Those voice prompt systems always make me embarrassed, to have to say out loud to a (presumably) machine, "BILLING PROBLEM!" makes me feel like an idiot. I always suspect that there's a human operator there, sitting silently, snickering at me.

IVR is endemic, it's everywhere, at the big corporations, at your doctor's office, (have churches started using it yet?) and they always STINK.

Here's my question for anon: we know customers generally hate IVR systems. Do they really make the business managers happy/save costs/streamline internal operations in any appreciable way?

@NW DC: I don't know exactly what figures the cool kids in accounting are using these days, but common wisdom is that a call handled in an IVR is about one tenth the cost of a call handled by a human. So yeah, those cost savings can add up and they do make managers smile. As far as streamlining, if the caller can be identified by an account number, or if a (hopefully) short set of questions can narrow down the reason for the call, then the call can be transferred to the appropriate area, preferably with all the data that's already been entered. Compare that to when I call my local phone company, get to an agent and explain the problem, only to be told I'll have to get transferred, and then have to explain the problem again. The theory of the IVR is sound, it's the design and implementation that tend to be lacking.

I'd like to design the church system . . . For inspiration, say "John" then press 3, 1, 4. For eternal damnation, press 6, 6, 6.

...at least the IVR voice responses are not spoken with an incomprehensible accent!