It's voicemail. NOT a new invention.

[bankworking]

I have complained before about our phone system, and the fact that if a customer calls into a branch, there often is no one available to answer the phones, leaving them a constantly ringing nightmare while we try to deal with the customers in front of us, who management has told us must be our first priority.

But if no one answers, it goes to a rather simple message:
blah, blah, blah politeness about no one answering, followed by: "If you would like our automated system, press one, if you would like to leave a message, press two or wait for the beep and someone will get back with you by the end of the business day, or if you would like to speak to our phone representatives, press zero."

The hope would be that customers might actually press zero, get transferred to the call center, and be helped by a live representative just like they wanted, just not someone in the physical branch. (Half the time, when I do answer the phone, I have to transfer them there anyway, since the call center is authorized to do more over the phone than I am since the calls there are recorded and they are trained in all the phone verification procedures). But, often enough, the customer stays on the line until it hits voice mail. Which wouldn't be so bad if they would leave a friggin' message. But no. Instead, we get hang-ups, occasional cussing or, worst of all, dead space. The customer simply continues to wait as if they are on hold. We can hear talking in the background. TV maybe. But for the full time of the message space, no actual message.

Which is so annoying when you have to sit through listening to the whole thing on the off chance that they realize the line is live and actually SAY something.

I know it'd be better if we could actually pick up when you call, but if you don't leave a voice mail, we can't help you later either. *sigh*

[barainga]

Simple, remove the voice mail for general calls and just have them auto transferred to the call center.

<checks site name>... oh yeah. never mind.

[bankworking]

Quoth barainga

Simple, remove the voice mail for general calls and just have them auto transferred to the call center.

<checks site name>... oh yeah. never mind.

I so wish....

[Kittish]

I suspect the actual message is the primary culprit here, if you've typed it up accurately, then it SOUNDS as if the person calling can just wait on the line and someone will eventually just pick up their call. Sort of. Simply adding 'then record your message' after the 'after the beep' would probably cut a lot of that down. Maybe. *looks around at the site* Well, not EVERYONE is an SC...it might help.

[MoonCat]

They aren't listening to the recorded message. I get this all the time at work when I do the night/weekend voicemail. You can hear background noises and then someone saying "Hello? Hello? Would somebody pick up the phone?"

Or we get people actually caught in mid-message because they were talking over the recording. Not long ago I had one lady saying, "What was that? Could you repeat that please, I didn't catch that?" Yeah-- she thought she was talking to a live person. Happens more often than you'd think.

[Ashaela]

We have a phone line that delivers callers directly to a voicemail box with prompts to leave their name and address - the purpose is so we can then mail them a complaint form. On our website, we give options to submit the complaint via a website form, print the form and mail it, or:

"Call the Complaint Hotline 1-800-(redacted) and follow the automated prompts to request a complaint form."

The prompts they follow are things like "State your name clearly and spell it. *beep, pause for name.....* State your street address clearly, including apartment or suite number, and spell your street name. *beep, pause....*" etc.

Even with that, there is a large segment that leaves a rambling complaint (without giving their name or address, or the information on just who they're actually complaining about).... But the one who took the cake was a lady who hollered at the phone everytime the recording was running....

"Look, I don't want to talk to no f'ing machine."
*Beep*
"Look, when a person's angry and has a complaint they don't wanna talk to no f'ing machine. Give me a real person.
*beep*
"I don't believe this! GIVE ME A REAL PERSON NOW!"

So I understand your answeing machine woes....

[camjuniper]

Quoth Ashaela

"Look, I don't want to talk to no f'ing machine."
*Beep*
"Look, when a person's angry and has a complaint they don't wanna talk to no f'ing machine. Give me a real person.
*beep*
"I don't believe this! GIVE ME A REAL PERSON NOW!"

I've dealt with that sort of message (luckily only a few times). It was someone calling after hours who left the message "I have tried every option on your awful phone tree! It's so confusing! This is so frustrating! I just want to talk to a live person about my CD! *slams down phone*" Uh huh. And if you'd listened to option 1, hours, you would have heard that we're currently closed. Good job. I only hope everyone else in the library didn't have the same message waiting for them.

SCs fail as much at listening as they do with sign reading!

[PepperElf]

Quoth MoonCat

They aren't listening to the recorded message. I get this all the time at work when I do the night/weekend voicemail. You can hear background noises and then someone saying "Hello? Hello? Would somebody pick up the phone?"

Or we get people actually caught in mid-message because they were talking over the recording. Not long ago I had one lady saying, "What was that? Could you repeat that please, I didn't catch that?" Yeah-- she thought she was talking to a live person. Happens more often than you'd think.

I get the exact opposite when I call people sometimes. I've had people hang up on me thinking I was a recording.