TELECOM Digest OnLine - Sorted: Re: "Please Enter Your ID Number" So We May Ignore it

Re: "Please Enter Your ID Number" So We May Ignore it

T (nospam.kd1s@cox.nospam.net)
Sat, 24 Mar 2007 02:33:26 -0400

In article <telecom26.81.12@telecom-digest.org>, hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com
says:

> On Mar 22, 10:41 am, davide...@gmail.com wrote:

>> I recently called the local Blue Cross. I waded through the
>> voicemail, and then they asked for subscriber id. This is now done
>> with voice recognition since the subscriber ID now has letters. (Why?
>> We moved away from SS numbers, but why add letters? 10 billion ids
>> aren't enough?) Then I connect and they ask my ID number again! Why
>> waste my time and their money on the voice system?

> Oh boy, does voice recognition drive me crazy and raise my blood
> pressure! (Ironically from calling to Blue Cross! Do they know
> they're making their subscribers sicker?)

> Voice recognition never seems to work for me. I don't like it at
> all. I complain to the human who eventually answers and they say "oh
> yes, we have a lot of complaints on that". Well, get rid of it, damn
> it!

> I don't mind--as much--keying an ID into a Touch Tone phone, at least
> that's hopefully clear to them what I'm doing.

> Back in the 1960s the movies/TV had spoofs of future life, with
> frustrated people trying to order a computer to do something. I think
> "Get Smart" made fun of instructions that the computer or robot
> (Hymie) took absolutely literally instead of figuratively. (e.g. "Run
> this through the computer" meant he would physically run through the
> computer gear.) Other sci-fi movies did so, sometimes with seriously
> unpleasant results. Generally, they mocked the upcoming technical
> revolution.

> And they were right. Reciting your 16 digits is harder than tapping
> them in, especially when the machine comes back "Sorry, I do not
> understand" five times and you go crazy trying to get through it.

> And the S.O.B. administrators won't let you enter zero to get a human,
> they freakin' force you to go through their hell.

Cox technical support for HSI recently rolled out a voice response
troubleshooter that is absolutely useless and only serves to frustrate.

One of the first things its says is "Hmmm, I can't see your modem. Try
unplugging it, wait twenty seconds and then plug it back in. Say
'continue' when you're ready."

Since I've already tried that little tech support trick, I just start
screaming "AGENT" about twenty times and that finally gets the system to
connect me to a human.

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