Is anyone else annoyed by the “just speak your choice” automation in so many telephone menus? I feel like an idiot mumbling “YES!” or “CHECK BALANCE!” into my phone. Maybe it’s the misanthrope in me coming to the front, but I’d much rather push buttons than talk to a pretend person.
What problem does the “speak your choice” technology solve? Is it just to work around the limitation of rotary phones not working with the other menus? (Does anyone even use rotary phones anymore?) It feels, to me, like an example of “we do it, because we can” syndrome. Sometimes, lower-tech really is sufficient-tech.
Matt Lincoln Russell
on 25 Nov 08Maybe I’m being pedantic, but isn’t there an accessibility issue? It’s all well and good if you have working fingers to press the buttons.
paydro
on 25 Nov 08Totally agree. I just scream out “operator” several times and it gets me through to a representative. Works quite well with AT&T.
Jim
on 25 Nov 08I see (hear?) it as being two different use cases:
1) User calls in from a landline phone with a normal headset. In this case pressing the numbers on the keypad can be easier than saying the word(s) for selecting a menu option. It can also be more private (in an office setting).
2) User calls in from a cell phone or a wireless home phone with the keypad on the headset/phone itself. Cell user may even be using a Bluetooth device in a hands-free environment (like a car). In those cases saying the word(s) is easier than moving the headset away from your ear to punch the numbers.
Two different user scenarios, two different interaction mechanisms. Seems logical to me (as long as both are offered).
Jesse
on 25 Nov 08I know what you mean – I’ve just been on the phone with United and Expedia which both use the voice recognition and it is really irritating.
Anonymous Coward
on 25 Nov 08Yeah, and if you clear you throat of something, the system interprets as a response. Took me 10 minutes to pay a bill by phone because of having a cold. Argh!
What I detest even more is when the system apologizes for misinterpreting a response. Are you really sorry, really?
On the other hand, I do appreciate having multiple ways to get information I want, and I will live with the growing pains as each method develops. You used to have to talk to an actual human only during business hours, remember?
evan
on 25 Nov 08It’s easier to use speak-your-choice systems with a hands-free mode cell phone. I agree though- I’d rather use the keypad in most instances.
I heard someone checking their bank balance at the mall recently, speaking their account number- genius.
Matt Jankowski
on 25 Nov 08I think that doing a “Press 1 or say ‘tech support’” style menu would be so much better—it just TAKES LONGER to attempt to say things in a style that will be correctly detected by the system, than it does to push a certain button.
Also, you look like a lunatic if you do this somewhere non-private.
Robert Einspruch
on 25 Nov 08I think Jim is right. I think it is to avoid making the user take the phone away from his/her ear constantly (and potentially missing other prompts). The real question is why you can not authenticate over the phone the same way you can authenticate on a website? Could you imagine if you had to enter your account number every time you needed to log into your bank website?
Brade
on 25 Nov 08Totally agree. One has to budget private time to make these calls because of the buffoonery required to yell random sayings into the phone. Definitely not a public activity.
RR
on 25 Nov 08I find this feature annoying and unnecessary in some cases, but in others, extremely efficient.
Bad: If the robot operator lays out your options first, then lets you “speak your choice” out of the options you just listened to. It would be just as easy to simply push a button, and the “speak your choice” option provides an unnecessary possibility of error.
Good: When the robot operator allows you to “speak your choice” BEFORE laying out all the options. Assuming the feature actually works, that is awesome. My day has just been improved by not having to listen to a bunch of monotone rubbish.
Jon
on 25 Nov 08So very, very true. This drives me absolutely insane.
Not sure I buy the “miss the prompts” argument, as an additional half second pause would solve this as well.
Even worse than a voice/keypad automation system is a system where at some steps voice is required, and others keypad.
Finally-the WORST is the fact that the tech power these is aweful - try calling paypal and telling them you need Website Payments Pro support (ran into this today, so I am a little extra bitter)
Kyle Maxwell
on 25 Nov 08Wait, people still check their balances over the phone? Not on the web?
Benjy
on 25 Nov 08Thank you! I also HATE “talking” to an automated system. I feel silly, and I don’t see the benefit/how it’s better than pressing buttons. And for certain transactions, there may be the privacy issue (credit cards, health ins.) .
nat
on 25 Nov 08I can see the potential benefits of using voice prompts, but it would be nice if there was also always an option to press a button instead. I had a lovely conversation with the USPS voice system the other day, trying to track a package:
the voice: Please say yes or no now. me: yes the voice: I’m sorry, I couldn’t quite understand you. Please say yes or no now. me: yes the voice: I’m sorry. I’m having trouble understanding you. Please say yes or no now. me: YES! the voice: I’m sorry. Lets try this a different way…
Once you get mad and start yelling, the system completely breaks down. I ended up pushing random buttons for nearly a minute before it connected me to an actual person, and by the time I got through, I was furious.
SchizoDuckie
on 25 Nov 08I think voice recognition systems as well as speech synthesys systems should be banned from public use for the next 10 years. It definately is a ‘because we can’ feature, pushed by managers who want to sell expensive stuff.
About 5 years ago, the same hype was on. Also, on the IVR systems, also with voice recognition.
Very cool in test subjects and with someone who speaks ‘school-english’ but if you have any kind of (foreign?) accent it fails like the original Fail-boat.
Also, who EVER thought of this?! It’s an absolute useability HELL!
DTMF FTW! Please keep using DTMF responses until we can connect you to an on-screen web-enabled menu on your phone or so.
Greg
on 25 Nov 08I feel the same way, but I doubt everyone does. I bet some less technologically inclined people prefer saying their options and feel more comfortable and confident about their choices that way. What works for us computer-folk doesn’t work for everybody.
Anonymous Coward
on 25 Nov 08amen!
smiams
on 25 Nov 08I’d like there to be 2 options for the opening prompt. “Fast and short” mode and “long and polite” mode.
If you choose “fast and short” mode, then the choices are stated very quickly and shortly. The goal here is to get the user through the menu system as quickly as possible with little regard for aesthetics and politeness. An extreme scenario would be the micro-machine man presenting like 7 prompt options in about 2 seconds.
Ben
on 25 Nov 08You can offer a lot more options in a single menu with a voice driven system than you can with 0-9.
Ben (No Relation)
on 25 Nov 08Hilarious… Same name, even same thought. I wanted to give a concrete example, though. In Austin, Capital Metro (our bus system) has a number you can call to get route information, etc. The thing I use it for most is to figure out if I missed my bus or if it’s running late or what. Especially on a new route where I’m uncertain of the times (sure I looked it up… memory like a sieve).
If I’m trying to tell it what stop I’m at, it’s a lot easier for me to just say “Landmark” and then “LBJ Library” than to wade through some kind of drill-down system (3 for central Austin, 4 for University of Texas area, 2 for east campus, 8 for LBJ library or whatever the case might be).
I think people would be a lot happier with these systems if they were more reliable, but the technology’s just getting there and we’re a long way from understanding how humans do so well and also in having fast implementations of some of the processes we think humans use to parse language.
I also think a bit of attention to design is clearly needed: I shouldn’t have to say, “Four three seven seven eight nine oh five one oh one five” for an account number. Not only is that insecure, it’s slower and a pain in the butt compared to punching in “437789051015#”.
Grant
on 25 Nov 08It kills me every time. I feel like an idiot talking to a recording.
Take it the next step: who wants to be the CSR I speak to after their company’s phone system just made me feel like a dork?
No takers? Yeah, that’s what I thought.
Eric
on 25 Nov 08hell yeah. i just pound zero when i hear the voice.
Kyle Davis
on 25 Nov 08The worst is when they don’t give you options, like Rogers, in Canada. You call and the voice says “What are you calling about”. Then you say what you are looking for. Then they say “I didn’t understand, are you calling about…”. Why didn’t you just start with that?!?
Perhaps next time I’ll just say “Human interaction”
cheat code
on 25 Nov 08the secret cheat code with most of these system is that the keypad still works.
if they offer you two or more options to “speak” – they normally correspond to “1”, “2”, “3”, etc.
The only place the cheat code doesnt work is when they ask you an open ended question, ie “what product are you calling about?”
Harsh
on 25 Nov 08“Speak your choice” has it’s place.
What if your menu options vary a lot and first cut of navigation has 20 options? It helps to go the voice way rather go through the 20+ list. Also, the technology has gotten pretty good in recent times.
The problem I find with most voice based menus is that they are designed as replicas of ‘dial your choice menus’. These are long, they do not respond properly and try to emulate a person. They are machines, they should speak like one. Just friendlier.
I urge you guys to try Goog411. It works in US/CA.
Josh Goebel
on 25 Nov 08Usually these systems vary from annoying to completely getting in the way, however I LOVE using Progressive’s (car insurance) voice system. I have to deal with it every 6 months to pay my insurance and it always understands me, always offers the right choices just as I need them and always gets me off the phone in just a few minutes.
And when it speaks #s and things it sounds like a real girl, not a robot voice. I realize there’s a pretty narrow range of things it lets me do… but for this task I’d much rather talk to the system than a human or non-voice system.
So I think the problem isn’t with the voice systems themselves but rather that they suck, are implimented poorly, and just aren’t close enough to conversing with a real person yet.
Dean J
on 25 Nov 08Some of us much prefer to speak the options, so that our hands are free, or so we don’t have to take the cellphone away from our head, look for the number, push it, and put the cellphone back against our heads.
Or, in other words, you aren’t necessarily the typical consumer?
Jessica
on 25 Nov 08I hate having to speak my options…I wish they’d start out with “if you prefer to use touch-tone, please press 1 now” and then go on with the voice options for those who don’t like keypads. I find it much more private, especially in an office with cubicles to be able to punch in the majority of my options with the privacy of pressing buttons rather than speaking out my social security number and other verification information
Sam McDonald
on 25 Nov 08I think that all voice controlled systems should be banned until they understand the english language in its entirety.
Scott
on 25 Nov 08The great thing about it is that there’s always the option to hang-up, go to a competitor, or just do without.
James
on 25 Nov 08I believe the intended positive aspect of these spoken option systems is the time consumed listening through all the menu options and the corresponding number. Having a ‘representative’ on the back end that’s wired to recognize the most common requests saves you the time of having to listen to a menu of options and their corresponding number (and in the worst cases, one of the options is ‘more options’!).
The problem is that nothing is ever as simple as the ‘most common request’ and companies are willing to spend money on voice interface systems to save money on customer service representatives. I recently tried to contact UPS to change the shipping address for a package. The system couldn’t understand ‘3rd floor’ and kept erasing the address and requesting input.
The reality of phone systems like these in most cases is that the audience is primarily older people who are uncomfortable using the internet. It’s an imperfect solution, but it’s also a deeper business problem: companies can sort of serve the audience and save money on customer service. The voice recognition system seems like refinements on the band-aid.
What I think is most frustrating to me is that I only call a company when I have a problem or question that can’t be answered through their website. And, in most cases, if I can’t solve a problem on their website, my faith that an automated system can answer my question is minimal.
Mathew Sanders
on 26 Nov 08I agree – from an experience point of view I feel totally weirded out speaking to a pretend person.
There was a taxi company that I hated using because when you called them you were asked to say “ready now”.
I don’t think it’s the fact I’m speaking to a machine that weirds me out, it’s just that you end up using such awkward language – or having to speak slower. If the pretend person did a better job of convincing me it was a real person I feel I’d cope better :)
Simone
on 26 Nov 08Another annoying operator/robot are those answering service operators. Now an operator appends ridiculous instructions to the call recipients personally recorded message that says: “At the tone please record your message, when you finish recording you may hang up, or press one for more options. To leave a callback number, press five.”
This is so retarded. Everybody most likely knows what to do after the tone and nobody ever uses the advanced options (or if they do then they already know the procedure).
It is also extremely frustrating when you are in a hurry. The operator kinda drags it out and pauses in between sentences and after the operator recording ends there is an extra long pause before the tone that you have been waiting for finally sounds. Sigh. Most of the time, I do not even bother leaving a message anymore because of this particular segment of the answering service. I might otherwise leave a message after the personally recorded message since most of my friends make theirs very quick… if it were not for this ridiculous segment.
I heard that Verizon Wireless customers were petitioning Verizon to provide an option to remove this operator appended to the recording in their answering service preferences. Good idea. The options can still be available, just remove the instructions from the automated answering response instead of forcing people to listen to this message again and again. Customers know if they will ever need those advanced options for callers. Most never use these. I never have.
CJ Curtis
on 26 Nov 08Automated phone systems these days are beyond frustrating. The “speak your choice” makes it just a little bit worse. As far as not having “working hands to push buttons,” I wonder how the person dialed the phone in the first place. And even if this is the case, why not just speak your number choice (i.e. “One”).
Here’s a little trick you may not know. As soon as you get into a customer service menu, dial 0 several times very quickly. In most cases, the system will immediately forward to a real person.
pixelbud
on 26 Nov 08Helps me not die while driving… can just speak it.
matt mcknight
on 26 Nov 08I hate these voice menus. Many of them (Verizon) replace multiple choice with free response, but who knows what the commands are? It’s like the command line with no reference guide. They also just don’t understand my voice. I hate it in my car too. I can never remember the commands and it’s easy to make a way off mistake and turn the AC to 55F when I wanted to find a gas station.
Nicolò Borghi
on 26 Nov 08Given the large presence of mobile phones in developing countries like India or Africa the “speak your choice” technology solvesmany problems for illiterate people. From the Stanford Social Innovation Review>
” Interactive voice-recognition systems can also help illiterate users make use of the phone’s features and the information services that organizations provide over the phone”
It s very interesting and you can read the whole pdf article here http://snipurl.com/6u5a9 [www_ssireview_org]
Neil
on 26 Nov 08The problem with “speak your choice” is that you’ve probably entered a whole heap of numbers (i.e. account no. and security code) to get to that point in the first place – why change all of a sudden to voice?
Also, it wouldn’t solve the rotary phone either as you would not be able to enter those numbers in the first place. I agree that a keypad or voice option should be given.
Maarten ter Braak
on 26 Nov 08Well I have only used one such a system in my life which is for my Railway card, it allows me to book a train trip through a system letting me speak in my departing and arriving station etc up till 5 minutes before it departs.. which comes in handy if you’ve forgotten to do so beforehand on the web.
Of course.. the system fails utterly when you discover it at the train station because of all the random noise around you and yes, it verily does make you feel silly.
Harry
on 26 Nov 08Voice activated IVR systems haven’t taken off in the UK for social reasons. Us Brits, famous for our social awkwardness, can’t bring ourselves to use them.
It’s pretty easy to design IVRs to allow both push button control and voice control. I think there are some tutorials on the Voxeo site that explain how do to this in VXML…
Stephen James
on 26 Nov 08It would be best if telephone interfaces could be standardized. Of course, then EVERYONE would press 0, wouldn’t they? I find that 99% of the time if I wanted to do complete a task without talking to someone, I’d do it online. I call as a last resort, and need to speak to a representative.
Raiden
on 26 Nov 08@ Robert Einspruch
Not to object for the sake of objecting, but having your phone (or web browser) remember your account numbers is entirely a bad idea in my opinion. Sure it provides convenience, but at the cost of security. What if you lost your cellphone, someone picks it up, checks your call history and see’s your banking institutes number, dials it. This person no longer needs your account number and password but just one of the two. That is half the battle won for them. Call me paranoid but that just does not seem worth the extra 5-10 seconds it would take me to punch in the numbers.
@ Kyle Davis
I can totally understand the frustration with the Rogers IVR. As someone who used to work for Rogers Wireless I’ve heard more the my fair share of gripes. Also as a Rogers Customer I have also had the exact same problem. One night I was trying to speak with Customer Care because I wanted to change some of my account information. I would call Rogers, get connected to the IVR, go through the motions to get to Customer Care. I would say Billing, and it would repeat “did you say technical support” which I’d respond to by saying “NO!” then in turn it would say “One moment while I connect you” and I’d end up talking to my buddies at work, they would in turn offer to transfer me. However I was feeling stubborn and wanted the IVR to actually get me where I needed to go! Anyways after 20 minutes of shenanigans I got fed up and decided to take a new approach. If the system was going to respond ridiculously so was I, give it a good dose of its own medicine and see how it reacted. So I called Rogers, got connected to the IVR, said Wireless to at least get into the right area, then responded with the words “Fuzzy Chicken” to which ever questions it would ask. As god is my witness the damn thing connected my to Customer care and I was able to change my account information.
Morgan Roderick
on 26 Nov 08If you are able to understand what the system is telling you, but not able pronounce a response correctly, because of not being a natural speaker of the language of the system, you’re screwed.
I am Danish and live in Sweden, and interacting with these systems is always “interesting”.
Electrician Houston
on 26 Nov 08I agree, these systems don’t seem to be more usable or efficiant than simply typing in your menu choice.
Yossef
on 26 Nov 08Ben (no relation),
Portland has an identifying number for each stop that you punch in when you call. There’s no reason to have a drill-down—type menu like what you’re describing as the only alternative to speaking the landmark name.
The only case speaking to an IVR system has ever worked for me is the traffic.com hotline, which works very well. But since I don’t have a regular commute anymore, my usage almost nil. This brings my “speak to the robot” satisfaction level back to near 0.
Luke Visinoni
on 26 Nov 08I totally agree. Gawd I hate those stupid things. I just push zero a million times or yell FUCK YOU I WANT TO TALK TO A REAL PERSON and that usually works. haha. What really pisses me off though is when it doesn’t and it just says “I’m sorry, we can’t understand what you want to do. Good-bye!”. That’s such great service! Ass hats.
Saverio Mondelli
on 26 Nov 08I’m not sure I could agree more.
The absolute best is when you call UPS and they want you to read a 20 character tracking number to a computer. Fricken genius!
Hitting the number zero 100x or screaming “AGENT!” is usually how I get my way with these things. Or, if you’re looking for a more elegant solution: http://www.gethuman.com/
Drew
on 26 Nov 08There are some big problems that it solves but like most things, it depends on the use case and people’s familiarity with those solutions.
Voice response systems have to be designed differently than the press 1-2-3 and most aren’t – hence frustration.
Voice response system are super helpful for company directory type applications. I much prefer saying a name than pressing 1 for last name, type in the first 74 digits of the person’s last name and hit #. Some of these are getting really good.
I much prefer stating what I want from a list of fast choices than trying to drive and type on my cell phone—especially cells that have keyboards and the numbers/letters don’t match up to standard phones.
It’s just an immature technology that a lot of companies haven’t figured out how to apply yet but are trying to use because everyone else is. This is usually a bad idea :)
Peter Evans-Greenwood
on 27 Nov 08Don’t confuse poor implementation with poor technology. Voice is better at IVR for some problems, such as the original stock quote service that launched Nuance (just try and enter ticker symbols into the phone pad and deal with the collisions).
The problem we have is poor UI design. Remember those first GUIs built by programmers? All dayglo colours with thousands of identical buttons and impossible to use. That’s the level of maturity we’re seeing in most voice interfaces.
If you want a good voice interface then you need to get linguists involved and really think about UI design. It’s a lot harder than throwing together a few vxml scripts.
A good voice UI is a beautiful thing—you hardly know you’re talking to a machine.
kaushal
on 27 Nov 08I think lesser technology is more valuable in a lot of places. You see the syndrome of adding capabilities because you can in so many software systems deployed within business in India.
The IT teams implement them to showcase their abilities and cause nightmares for business users.
Rachel
on 27 Nov 08I had those voice commands too – especially when the system doesn’t recognise your voice because you have a different accent!
Paul
on 27 Nov 08Are you frickin mental? You don’t want voice activated computers? Next you’ll be saying pah! to personal jetpacks and hovercars.
Oliver Beattie
on 27 Nov 08These annoy the sh*t out of me too — AT&T’s is especially painful to navigate.
This discussion is closed.