Tuesday, October 19, 2010

Automated Online Help vs. A Live Person

It's rather humorous, depending on the responses you get, but it's also rather frustrating. Have you ever tried "Live Automated Help" on-line with any website? Does it seem to you that the answers and responses are a little "robotic"?

I was dealing with a Magic Jack problem today and when I could not figure it out I noticed this "Live Help 24/7" link, so I started that up. From the beginning of the conversation it seemed they were not responding to anything I said, at least not appropriately, like they might if there was a live human at the other end?

At first I thought, okay, maybe they are in another country struggling with English. But then when they started asking me questions I had already answered I began to wonder. On top of that, it took like a minute or more for them to send a reply back to me, almost like some software program was processing the question, calculating the right answer.

Then, when the problem seemed to "solve itself" and I told them about that, they completely ignored it and asked if my Magic Jack was plugged in. It was becoming clearer that I must be talking to an automated machine. That thought was confirmed with the next sentence when I typed "Thanks for not caring about my loss of service or offering an apology." and the reply I received was "Your welcome."

I decided to look into automated "live" help. Turns out it is so very cost effective many companies use it. The "typical cost of a transaction via a call center is $8 to $20, and via human chat is $3 to $10, while the same transaction via automated online channel costs $0.10 to $0.80." Hmmm... guess that explains things.

There have been times when I've used "live chat" and I know for sure I'm speaking to a human because their response, sentence structure and vocabulary are a lot more relaxed. It feels like a conversation. When the automated chat help eventually offered an apology, the wording was "I do apologize but the inconvenience."

For real!!? It gets to me that these companies, in the name of the almighty dollar, sacrifice quality to their paying customers. When we need support it would be nice to know we are talking with someone intelligent enough to comprehend our situation.

Friday, October 08, 2010

It's about what they DON'T tell you

While on a service call the other day I discovered a customer who had been paying for Microsoft's MSN Messenger Plus for the past seven years. Her reason for giving out an extra $30 per year to the Big M was to ensure her mailbox never got full.

It turns out that a few years ago Microsoft removed in-box size limits on Hotmail accounts. Now they grow with you depending on your usage habits. Did anyone bother to tell her? Possibly, but she doesn't remember getting any e-mails about it.

So, Microsoft was happy to continue charging her credit card every year. I wonder how many others are still paying to have an increased mail box. Sure there are a couple other benefits of the service, like larger attachment sizes (which also keep getting larger - for free), and the benefit of not having to log in every 30 days without losing your account (but she checks her Hotmail everyday anyway).

For her, the service was redundant so I helped her to cancel the annual subscription. Boy, was that difficult. I can't imagine someone barely computer literate to try and figure that process out. It was made so difficult to navigate to the right page to find the right option and even if someone wanted to opt out they might give up out of frustration.

So easy to start, so hard to quit. Kinda sounds like a bad habit. Shame on Microsoft!