Telstra has revealed the addition of almost one million new mobile services in the six months to December 2011, but Sensis revenues plummeted 24 percent in 12 months.
Customer service automated telephone systems such as "if you want to be connected to 'sales' please say 'yes' " are the bane of everyone's lives. Optus is finally about to remove theirs.
No customer service operator would deny that an angry customer is more difficult to deal with, 'manage' if you will. And nothing seems to generate more anger (aside from the original problem) than navigating an interactive voice response system. On occasions, my wife tells me that an operator offered a credit or some other rebate within moments of hearing her agitated state after fighting with the interactive phone system.
In my own case, there must be something wrong with my voice. On many occasions systems are entirely unable to hear me say 'yes' in response to a question, however, if I clear my throat prior to speaking, that is interpreted to be a very clear 'yes.' And no, I refuse to cough into the phone just to keep the computer happy!
I've only ever managed to get anywhere with the Optus system by endlessly saying 'operator' until the system gets sick of me and connects me to a random person (with a warning that it will take longer to deal with my query because I was so uncooperative).
Sources within Optus recently told iTWire that the interactive voice response system is to be removed. Unfortunately not immediately, "it will take some time to change over," they advised.
Let's hope that other organisations will follow the Optus lead and remind themselves that the term "customer service" encloses two very distinct and unrelated entities – both of which need to be handled independently. Let's also hope that Optus completes the conversion as quickly as possible.
PS I'd be very happy to consult with Optus on framing a suitable replacement!
David Bass
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