Customers struggling with interactive voice response system
Many companies and organisations have got a customer service centre and a customer can contact it by telephoning at the service centre phone number. Generally some people will always be talking to the customer service executives and if we try to contact them then we will be asked to wait for our turn and in some cases that waiting period is irritatingly long and could be of the order of 10-15 minutes. Now some companies (like banks) have installed interactive voice response system so that a computer voice will ask the customer his query by selecting a number 1, 2, 3 ... and will also tell the options connected with those numbers. Once the customer selects a number then again he would be asked to select from some options and will also be asked to enter his card number or document number or some other code and if everything matches he would be told that his request is noted and the action will be taken and he will be informed through SMS or email. In many cases the interactive response system is not able to provide a satisfactory solution and then directs the customer to the service executive where the customer can talk to the executive and tell him the query or problem.So far so good but I have seen that many times the system does not connect to the service executive and thanks the customer and disconnects. It is very irritating and time consuming and then again one has to phone at that number.
What is your experience in this regard? Are you satisfied with the service provided by these service centres?