Thursday, August 8, 2013

Your call is very important to us...

These seven words, "Your call is very important to us," are heard every day by thousands of people calling into scores businesses around the world. These seven words are typically uttered via a recorded voice as someone waits on hold for a human to take the call, which requires the caller to navigate a bewildering gauntlet of predetermined guesses as to why the caller is calling in the first place, which never seem to satisfy the voice making these guesses or the person trying to guess at which guess to respond to, distorted music that could probably cause an Epileptic person to seize spontaneously, and occasional moments of silence that typically precede the seven words being repeated... again. 

I'm always willing to admit I'm wrong about something or at least off base, but I would argue that if the intent of these seven words was sincere, was honest, then a human (not a machine) would have answered the phone, rendering as unnecessary the very need to utter the seven words in the first place. 

Put another way, prove my call is important to you by actually taking my call! 

Look, I get that hiring enough people to field these calls is probably expensive, but it's the cost of doing business; however, if these businesses want repeat business --- and just go ahead and name a company that doesn't want this, I dare you --- then they should treat each call as if it's directly connected to its bottom line, to its bonuses, to its chances for success, to its very future in business. 

But I'm a realist: failing this, failing the ability to field every call by a human, just stop saying, "Your call is very important to us." It's disingenuous at best and tiresome at least. 

And lose the damn crappy music too. That's just annoying.

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