Human vs machine: no contest

Wednesday May 9, 2007 04:08 PM

Amy Cooper

I used to moan about machines taking the jobs of people. I grumbled along with everyone else when an automated answering service picked up instead of a cheery human voice.
Not any more.

It began with what should have been a commonplace visit to a Westpac ATM. I put my card in the slot and with an ominous clatter, it tumbled into the bowels of the machine. I peered inside. Darkness. A man came along and tried his card. Clatter. We stood for a while, nonplussed, while it gradually sank in that I was stuck at Kings Cross on Saturday night without cash or the means to access any.
Printed next to the stricken ATM was a '24-hour customer hotline' number which we were instructed to call in the event of such a problem. "I wouldn't bother," said my cardless companion. "It'll be a machine." And he shrugged and walked off, resigned to his fate.
I dialled the number anyway because I'm prone to bouts of optimism.
A real voice answered. I knew it was a real one because no machine could have loaded the phrase 'can I help you,' with such a potent combination of hostility, lethargy and suspicion. Still, it was not this person's fault that the ATM appeared to have been devoured from the inside by parasites, so I explained politely what had happened. Within moments I was longing for the warmth and empathy of a computer.
'You won't get your card back," barked the helper and advisor. 'It'll be destroyed."
'What can I do?" I asked.
"Call your own bank."
I won't depress you with the rest of the exchange but in summary I was told I was as rooted as the ATM, alone and cashless and far from home.
I know - that's banks. They're big and nasty. It's no suprise. But I really didn't need the salt in the wound of some bolshy indifference from a person whose job it was to offer help and advice. Actually, it wasn't indifference; there was an unmistakable note of glee in her voice when mine finally wobbled with frustration and sadness. I was left feeling punished for the audacious assumption that a cash dispensing machine would dispense cash.
I hope a stray great dane wanders into that woman's house after eating a leftover vindaloo and poos all over her carpet.
Anyway, I did call my bank, the ANZ, for it too has a 24-hour customer hotline. Another human answered, and she appeared to be the Westpac one's angrier sister.
No, she couldn't help either. I should have used my own bank's machine (I tried, it was out of service), I would have to wait three to five working days for a new card (it arrived six days later) and I'd be charged $15 for being daft enough to expect a bank to let me get anywhere near my own money. This message was delivered with the same grim delight as the first one. Don't ever say these people lack job satisfaction.
Meanwhile, in a suburb not far away, a friend was engaged in a similarly soul-sapping dialogue with Ikea. She'd bought a bookcase which had been delivered that day. In smithereens.
Standing amid the bookcase's shattered remains, my buddy called the customer helpline and spoke to a person who logged the details and said someone else would call back. Next day, someone did. Someone with the people skills of a salt water crocodile. Nevertheless, my friend who's both pregnant and busy, explained that by now she just wanted the self-assembly roadkill gone. And as this could not be arranged for at least a week, she didn't want another one.
The Ikea help-person didn't like that at all. The penalty for my friend's unreasonable change of mind was that she wasn't going to get any of her delivery fees back. She was also left with the impression that if she dared darken the doorway of an Ikea showroom again, a cheap chest of drawers with a name like Sprok or Blurk would be dropped on her head.
Like me, my mate knew better than to expect decent service from a large organisation. But we were still naive enough to expect courtesy from a human employee.
Sure, it's irritating when you have to book a taxi via a machine and it can't understand your tipsy slurring or your foreign accent. And those automated switchboards are annoying. But machines don't deliver their service with a side order of resentment, anger and schadenfreude. They don't vent their frustrations about poor pay and crap working conditions (and anyway, that's no excuse - some of the politest, most compassionate people I know are minimum wage workers, just as some of the rudest are millionaires). When they don't listen, it's not personal. And although an encounter with an automaton can drive you crazy, it's still more bearable than the joyless futility of a human encounter devoid of humanity.
I'm sorry, but the penny-pinching corporate bosses are right: humans on phones are a waste of money. I'd rather they were all replaced by machines. Or dogs, who may not understand what you want, but at least wag their tails and bear you no ill will.
The sooner our bank fees and service charges stopped funding these dial-a-misanthropist hotlines, the better.

COMMENTS

I hate call centres as a rule. They're always too busy to care and usually lack the knowledge to help anyway. That said, I always hang up with a smile on my face after talking to the Red Cross Blood Bank lot. Sure they need people to donate so they have to be nice to them but the people employed there seem genuinely nice and it's a pleasure to speak with them, even if for only a few short minutes.

by Peter on August 12, 2007 at 08:34 AM

It is frustrating to know that customer "no" service is as bad outside of the USA as it is inside. Banks are the worst. People get mad at oil companies for prices when banks have twice the profit margin and a much greater disdain for their customers. We need to change banks more frequently and tell them why.

by Eric in the USA on August 12, 2007 at 10:06 AM

Sadly though, most of the problems you ring these helplines for cannot be resolved by a computer. The key thing is to get the name of the person you're dealing with and the time of the incident. Then write a letter of complaint to the bank and cc: it to consumer affairs. Australians don't complain productively and crap service continues to be the order of the day. Service in Japan is excellent because it's what customers expect, and organisations are willing to pay decent wages to staff with the appropriate skills.

by BrendanA on August 12, 2007 at 11:19 AM

ah, I worked in a bank once - over twenty years ago. I remember the once a week mini-rallies staged in the coffee room on the subject of 'customers have had it too good for too long.' -I remember one manager rubbing his hands together in glee over new fees. I remember being too embarrassed to ask someone to pay a $2 fee to take their own money out from a different branch, so saying nothing.
I was on the customers side. I could see the machiavellian exploiters that ran banks doing their evil work and I was sympathetic. I resolved to go the extra mile, even if it meant that my 'numbers' were down, and they named and shamed me at monday's mini nuremberg.
then one day one of the customers came in because a mistake had been made... at the operations centre, as it happened, not by me. (I did point this out and offer to pass her on to the mistake maker. she ignored this.) - because I had handled her transaction it was my fault. She rang the branch several times daily and screamed abuse at me, marched into the branch and shoved rude notes under the glass and was a pain in the arse for weeks after.
Not long after this, another customer screamed in my face because I checked their signature. They had been coming to the branch for 20 years apparently, and by not recognising them I was apparently accusing them of criminal deceit.....
Its a soul destroying mean spirited business. You get jaded. You stop caring. Every customer that abuses you makes you more offhand with the next person. you get off the phone to someone who has just spent twenty minutes telling you what an incompetent fool you are because you cant give them their forgotten PIN number, and then someone rings you to say that they are stuck in the middle of nowhere with no atm card and could you please drive over and get it out of the machine for them now?

fact. the banks, in order to save money, minimise staff, give them more work than they can possibly do AND decide what services they will or wont provide. Like every employee, I'm limited in my capacity to give you what you want.
Tell you what. Write to your bank, remove your money and tell them how the service fell down. Put your money in a community bank or a credit union. the big banks don;t care and the person on the other end can't do anything more than take details.
Vote with your feet. Or with your cash. It is really all they care about. (and incidentally if you dont have very much cash, they dont care at all. You cost more than you are worth to them. I know. The manager told me.)

by rosie on August 12, 2007 at 02:07 PM

My experience with people who answer service calls from Bangalore is rather positive. They tend to be very polite, enthusiastic, empathetic and dedicated to solving the problem at hand. Perhaps those employees providing such slack service should wake up and realise that many on the other side of the world are hungry for their positions.

by Michael on August 12, 2007 at 02:19 PM

I am a machine, not an animal. Hear me ROAR!

by Roderick Redpants on August 12, 2007 at 07:07 PM

Have worked in both banks and call centres (though never a banking call centre). You do get unreasonable customers, who whilst they have a valid complaint, decide that it's your personal fault and you need to have the power in the organisation to move heaven and earth, even though you're a minimum wage call-centre monkey who virtually needs to ask permission to use the bathroom.

As a result, I am always as polite as humanly possible to call centre staff regardless of how much their organisation has p*ssed me off. I draw the line at telemarketers though (and I used to do that too).

In the US, you get computers ringing you at dinner time instead of people, which is even worse. You end up only answering familiar numbers and everybody else can leave a voicemail.

I also called a US call centre once and spoke to a South American who had English as a second language, and he told me "I'm sorry, I only speak English". WTF? I'm 3rd generation Aussie!

I will always take a human over a computer though, regardless of bad service (hello Comcast) as at least you can explain your problem and not go off a preset list, none of which contains either your problem or the option to speak to an operator.

As for call centres in Bangalore, I rang one about an investment mortgage and she couldn't do a simple reverse maths equation for me (I had no paper or computer) .... they loaned the minimum amount of X and if I wanted to buy a property with 20% deposit how much would the minimum proprety cost?

She couldn't even understand the question, and she was a mortgage consultant!

*sigh*

by Miss Dynamite on August 12, 2007 at 08:40 PM

Customer service in this country is diabolical - its almost as if I owe the person that I am asking for service. Harvey norman employees are typical - they often have no knowledge at all about the products they are selling...and yet are seemingly upset if you resent spending $1000 for a gizmo that they have no idea about but won't let you open the box of...

Banks are a disgrace - my solution is to not talkj to the teller. I write down my instructions on a piece of paper and poass it under the window - refusing to interact with them. If I have to verbalise I restrict my answer to monosyllabic responses. I have been called arrogant in the process - that's OK - how does it feel to be treated with the same contempt that all the major banks lavish on us?

I work in the health services business - as an emergency physician. I delight in the fact that bank employees have waited 5 hours in ED to see a doctor. I refuse to enter into long spiels from patients about their lives and so on - I restrict their answers to 1-word replies to my questions. Because today's hard-edged corporate cost-cutting - endless punitive road rules and stupid regulations - and miserable customer service has the profound effect on a general community (myself very much included) - of hating my fellow man. So yeah - by all means - save a few bucks going offshore to call centres in India - refuse to know the products you sell - refuse to actually GRACEFULLY refund anything or honor a warrenty - but there is a price - think about it while you wait to see me in emergency departments in Australia for hours and hours.....

by Bill on August 12, 2007 at 08:58 PM

As a uni student I work casual shifts at a store. I've always tried my best to be kind and polite, i don't mind that people take their time or don't buy anything, i believe everyone no matter their appearance deserves good service and respect. But like you have just said, many probably wished i was a machine, because then i wouldn't be hurt when they explode in my face for something i couldn't provide, i wouldn't care that i would close the store half an hour later without overtime pay so they could choose the right item, it wouldn't be so inefficient as not to memorise every style, code and item in my head. It's not like i have a family, or friends, or a life outside. I'm here as your servant, as functional and devoid of any dignity as I should be because after all...isn't the customer always right?

by dee on August 12, 2007 at 10:58 PM

you need to remember that this is a sad side effect of economic growth.

only stupid people work for the insanely low wages these people(as well as their half breed cousins the fast food workers and supermarket attendants) are offered by big businesses, and they are severley undertrained in anything other than a straightforward situation- and even then i need to answer 13 questions and be referred to 3 different departments and managers before the issue is resolved.

and yet the anomoly is somehow the profits go up, and we put up with the increasing decline in customer service.

only a short while ago, 10 minute hold times were unacceptable. now they are incorporated into our call schedules.

by Dean Poulos on August 12, 2007 at 11:24 PM

If David Suzuki was correct in "A Time for Change" I am sure he included bank machines. Not that they should provide change, though bus drivers wouldn't have to then, but keep it local. Rosie is spot on, go to a community bank, take the money out, put it in locally and "viola ca ce va marche" we can insulate the bendigo for example with fair dinkum aussie dollars. Keep the likes of the predatory scotts and bank west (bank weak) off the growth charts. This sub prime crisis is psychological and will merely increase bank profits. I wish google spent less time on their april fool joke and instead researched better banking solutions. It all just went down the toilet.

by mike on August 13, 2007 at 12:40 AM

You and your pregnant friend sure were unlucky. When an ATM of 'which bank?' swallowed my card one recent evening, the human at the other end of the phone couldn't have been more sympathetic. Fortunately I have 2 accounts so I accessed my other 1 at another machine nearby. Perhaps that's an option everyone should consider. After all, any type of machine can malfunction. And Murphy's Law often applies. Just what did you expect the call centre operator to do other than arrange for the issue of a replacement card?

by viv on August 13, 2007 at 01:22 AM

Rosie, that's the saddest story I've read in a long while. I hope life has improved for you since then.

by dot on August 13, 2007 at 08:12 AM

I work for a large telco, and let me tell you, the push is on for 'quality customer service'. But you try smiling and being sweet to every single customer when you are abused from log on to log off, monitored for how long you log off to go to the toilet, paid minimum wage, work ridiculous shifts on a rotating 24 hr roster, and have to deal with the famous 'systems' issues that prevent you from actually helping your customers. Add to that the spectre of having your pissant little job exported to Mumbai or Manila where it will cost half as much money but generate twice as many complaints from customers who take issue with a heavy accent or that their information is sitting offshore.

You cannot win. Call centre work is a bottom rung job that requires no formal qualification and only basic customer service experience. The attrition rate is the highest of any job that I know of. People either bounce between call centres or get an education and move on up.

Next time you speak to a jaded CSR, think about the above and put yourself in their position. Hardly anything to be cheery about.

by Tracey on August 13, 2007 at 08:39 AM

Use Credit Unions! They're just like people and they have them working there!

As for automated voice prompting, Telstra should just get a receptionist - it's easier than being transferred to the wrong department when you asked for the right department... then transferred to another department to be transferred again... get my drift?

by W Speers on August 13, 2007 at 09:10 AM

If you call a cab in Melbourne, you don't even need to speak.

by ben on August 13, 2007 at 09:56 AM

Vote with your feet. Cahnge banks. I am not rich but I have paid to join a bank's Private Bank. It costs $750.00 a year. The service is fantastic.

by Kim Jacobs on August 13, 2007 at 10:19 AM

I work in a call centre - I am extremely polite to all customers - I am a polite person by nature - I make sure that i provide good customer service - but sometimes customers are just plain rude. If you want me to help you over the phone - do not start with abusing me even though you are frustrated - I am more like to to help you if you are calm and explain your problem than if you start hurling swear words at me and say "you have done this" "you have done that" when I all I have done is simply answer the phone with you on the other line. Call centres are hard work. You have customers calling you asking about products (at my call centre we offer over 1000 different procucts), where customers have the expectation that I can answer their querie immediately and the company expects me to deal with all queries in an average of 6 minutes. I certainly dont condone the experience above - that is appauling - but call centres are not easy places to work. When the person on the other end is a human - treat them with a bit of respect - you never know - you might get it back and your problem solved....

by David on August 13, 2007 at 10:28 AM

I used to work in a call centre for a courier company, and no I don't like them, BUT customers are rude, I have been nice and kind and tried to be helpful and all I got was screamed at and called just about every name under the sun. So there's a reason why people who work in call centres are bitter and it's probably because the person who called before you, probably insulted them in so many ways it's not funny. So have a little compassion for people who have to do the god awful job of working in an industry that involves your soul being destroyed on a daily basis

by jess on August 13, 2007 at 10:38 AM

It's an Australian thing, simply as that. Customer service reps here must be trained to be rude and unhelpful - try calling any telco or any bank - they're all as bad as each other. They don�t know their subjects, get defensive, blame the customer, and ultimately loose the custom.
I would far prefer to talk to an Indian in Mumbai who is polite, knowledgeable, and helpful, then an Australian in Sydney who will make me want to strangle them within the first 10 seconds of the call.

by Gary Baxter on August 13, 2007 at 11:20 AM

I might an old feller but nevertheless an ex digger who is resourceful. I don't own a mobile phone,can't switch a computer on(my grandson is typing this) but can get things done without an ATM or Call Centre.Just tell anyone who wants to do business with that you refuse to speak to someone who is not directly in the employment of that business,and refuse to use a 13 prefix number(it goes direct to India )get your cash out when you need it by buying something small at a grocery shop or convenience store and use EFTPOS.It won't cost you a fee and you won't lose a card.
If we all use our heads we can teach these big Companies about not treating us consumers with contempt.I hate them all !!

Bluedog, well said. Why can't we have someone like you running the country? (Probably because you're far too sensible to consider a daft job like politics.)
Sound words, and we should all take your advice.
AC

by Bluedog on August 13, 2007 at 11:29 AM

Or dogs, who may not understand what you want, but at least wag their tails and bear you no ill will.

Seconded. They might not get you anywhere, but you would feel better for it.

by Kel on August 13, 2007 at 11:31 AM

Luckily i haven't had to deal much with the big banks, i've been with a credit union for a long time and the benefits are awesome - not the least of which is no ATM fees! the only problem i've had with them is that they wouldn't give me a credit card.. but looking back at my financial situation then i would say that was quite a responsible decision for them to make, on their behalf and mine.
Michael i'm not sure if the issue is about service calls in Bangalore? Though i have to say i have had both good and terrible (3 mobile call centre workers seem to be in general not very helpful) service from some outsourced call centres. Probably much the same as in Australia.
Rosie that's awful.. some people need to stop taking things so seriously!! I work in the database department at my work and i get abuse from people who don't want to receive mail from us, even though i didn't make the decision to send them that mail in the first place. it's frustrating!

by L on August 13, 2007 at 11:51 AM

The Sun-Herald

Amy Cooper

Human vs machine: no contest

COMMENTS

POST A COMMENT

Comments Terms & Conditions

RECENT ENTRIES

ARCHIVES