Ranting 101 - How Not To

Okay, so I write a check to my wife this morning and it turns out to be the last one in the checkbook.  Okay, I say to myself, I'll just order more on the way to work, no problem.

Hey, my Bluetooth, hands free, auto connect, phone connection is all set up in my fancy BMW, why not use it?

I'm driving along... click on the handy wheel mounted call button, and speak the number for the Bank of America.  Wait for it.  I get an opening message from the B of A that goes on for about four minutes about the new features, and how it's all really going to be easy for me to do almost anything I can think of that has to do with my money.

It's one of those auto voice recognition systems, much touted by the computer industry. These systems are now some 50 years old, started by Bell Labs to recognize spoken numbers.  Now numerous companies with names like ArielPhone, VoiceGenie, and SpeechWorks use and deploy them on the general public.

What they say about the technology:

Real-time, continuous speech systems that augment command, security, and content creation tasks with exceptionally high accuracy.

What they mean:

We can fire a whole lot of people.

This one has a man's voice - I guess they thought that would be more reassuring than hearing Britney Spears talk to me about my finances.  

Anyway, I dutifully wait through him reading the menu options - of course ordering checks isn't in the first menu, I have to say 'Other' to get to another set of choices.

I say 'Other', and am given my checking account balance.  I try to interrupt him and say 'OTHER' clearly and slowly.  He repeats my bank balance.  Realizing that, as personal as he is, he's not really listening to me, I wait for him to finish - whereupon he says:

'To repeat this information say 'Repeat' to cancel press the star key".

Now if you are in a car, using your fancy hands free system, pressing a star key isn't the easiest thing to do - something you would have thought they might have considered.  But, realizing I'm not going to get anywhere, I fumble for my phone, trying not to look like I'm using it so I don't get arrested for using the phone in the car, open it up, just in time to hear him repeat my balance a third time.

I hit the star key and get take back to the main menu.  I listen to all the nine options again, but this time I'm ready with phone in hand to press the star key at the end, hoping I'll get more options.

No such luck.  The star key results in

'I'm sorry that's not a correct option, do you want to be connected to a representative?  

Thank God, or whomever, I say 'YES' and am promptly returned to the main menu for the same nine choices.  

I heard an interview on NPR the other day from a fellow who designs these systems.  He was saying how good they were etc. etc.  He also said that the better ones can now tell the tension in the callers' voice and will react to it, giving different choices - and, he said that a lot of times they record your conversation with the robot, without telling you.

Well at that point, were they recording my conversation, they would have heard a rather unhinged fellow yelling at his steering wheel demanding that someone please just send him a #@$^*% box of checks.

This did the trick and I got to a real person.  I mention my disappointment with the system, but I was so very grateful to be speaking to a real person, that I'm soon chatting amiably with this fellow.   After giving him my account number, address and mother's maiden name he told me that he would pass me along to the check ordering department.  I say thank you and wait.

Well, I am passed along, but not to a real person, but to another voice recognition system.  This one tells me that they too have improved their system and that I would surely be impressed.  After the usual 3 or 4 minutes the voice stops and asks that I enter my bank's routing number, and if I didn't know where to find the routing number on my checks to say 'help'.  

Now it wouldn't have taken a genius to figure out that if I were ordering more checks I wouldn't have any checks in front of me to look at to see the routing number.  And, as it turns out deposit slips don't have it on them.  

The voice doesn't give me any other options and keeps waiting for the routing number... after a few choice words I grab my phone again and hit the star key about 10 times.....

That seems to do it and I'm connected to a rather nice fellow from India (I asked).  Through gritted teeth I mention my disappointment with the system, he apologizes, and says that before we get started would I like to participate in a Survey after the call.  

I had to pause - I mean he's just heard me complain about spending this much time on the phone for a box of lousy checks and he wants me to stay on the line longer to answer some dumb survey.  I tell him this, and he says well they want good feedback as well as bad... after I count to 10 again, I figure, okay, yes I WILL stay on line and give them a small piece of my mind, absolutely.

He asks for my account number, address, first born's favorite toy, the key code to my office door and what's the pattern of my great grandfather's kilt.  Given that, he tells me that he can get the checks out, no cost, no shipping fees in 10 days.  

I tried to explain that to a person who has run out of checks, 10 days is a bit long.  Now I suppose there are those people that have 'Reorder Checks' marked as a 'to do' on their calendars, but I'm not one of them.  'Well' he says for $24 he can get one box of checks to me in three days.  

Anyway, I say forget it send it by snail mail... thank him... he asks if there is anything else he can do, at which point my mind is reeling with a lot of things he could do, but that all would probably scare small children in public.  He says 'thank you' and tells me to hold for the survey.

What hadn't occurred to me was that the survey would be another voice recognition system.  It was, and I almost used up the last of my clever swear words.  This one was a woman, who explained to me how helpful this was going tot be, how the number '1' was the lowest, '10 was the highest etc. etc.  

First question ' How to you rate the overall experience you've just had?' My answer?  A huge '1'.  She tells me I entered a '1' and to press '1' if that was correct.  I press a '1'.  She now tells me that am I aware that a '1' is the lowest grade I could give, and was I sure that that was what I wanted?

My last words before I hung up, which were probably only heard by some underpaid cleric somewhere in a third world, had to do with family heritage, two large goats, and the use of porcupine quills.