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Yet I have to repeat all the information I just meticulously keyed in by hand and confirmed with the computer 20 seconds prior. I'm always dismayed when it's c

Yet I have to repeat all the information I just meticulously keyed in by hand and confirmed with the computer 20 seconds prior. I'm always dismayed when it's clear the person on the other line is manually entering the string of digits that I just also entered by hand.

toxican 10y ago
I worked briefly at a call center for a company I won't mention. We had that system in place so people could punch in account numbers and we were supposed to get a popup on our screen with all of their info on it. It literally never worked. They'd punch in their numbers, but the popup never appeared once. When my trainer was explaining it to us, all he had to say was "yeah sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't" and there didn't seem to be any concern about getting it fixed. And callers complained, too, so it wasn't like nobody noticed!
- VLM 10y ago
  From a higher level view at a company that that has a center that customers call into, that strategy is used to create a compliant cooperative customer. Especially if most of them call in screaming. Especially if you might be giving them bad technical or financial news. Presumably it filters out those too angry to type in numbers, while making people in hopeless out of control situations feel they have control in that they're typing in numbers. Its a psyop, mostly. If you let customers type in an account number, for example, people will type in random numbers with a slight preference for numbers beginning with 1. However if all your real account numbers begin with a 400, then you can programmatically exclude all calls with accounts entered that don't match a regex of begins-with-four-zero-zero. That filters out cranks and people who are unqualified to even call. If they enter zero, 9, 1234, just dump them to dialtone. Superficially it sounds like bad security for your seven digit identifier to really be like 4 digits of security because they all begin with 400 but its actually a feature for filtering.
  - TeMPOraL 10y ago
    > compliant cooperative customer Tangent, but "Compliant Cooperative Customer" totally sounds like a buzzword companies would use.
    - VLM 10y ago
      ... wasn't just a pipe dream, after all. I worked in telecom in a former lifetime.
wgyn 10y ago
This is what I find so silly. Companies have all this information about you that is actually relevant to their customer support. They could get so much out of making e.g. the phone support system talk to their account system.
- fragmede 10y ago
  It's easy enough to imagine reasons why. Especially when a business classifies entire divisions as being either a cost or profit center, customer support tends to lose out and be considered a cost center. Every penny that goes into a so-called cost center is then scrutinized and subject to being deemed frivolous. It's no wonder, then, that spending money and engineering time on something that would cause customers to be something unmeasurable, like being slightly less aggravated, is not prioritized or even cut, as being extravagant. To that end, despite Comcast and airlines low customer satisfaction ratings, they seem to be doing alright.
idunno246 10y ago
I used to make ivr software. Usually there's a few different systems involved in a single number, and you may even be transferred between numbers. It's all held together with painters tape, so many places for a bad transfer. When it worked, we could get everything based on caller ID without having to ask, yet "security"
- funkymike 10y ago
  It is important that the caller provide some information for authentication purposes. Just because someone uses your phone (or spoofs the number) doesn't mean that they should be able to make changes to your account. Lots of companies outsource their IVRs. And everything is all too often cobbled together in a just-make-it-work-right-now fashion.
- andrewflnr 10y ago
  It's all held together with painters tape I love this. Even duct tape was too expensive, but we have this roll of masking tape, so...
droopyEyelids 10y ago
Companies that deal with sensitive data require not only that you verify your identity, but the customer service rep verify they're talking to you. They're as much concerned with a CSR accessing accounts inappropriately as they are with a fraudster gaining access to customer accounts. And that CSR verification happens by the CSR typing in your information.
- CaptSpify 10y ago
  Then why do they ask it on the phone to begin with?
  - droopyEyelids 10y ago
    The first time verifies you, before you can talk to a CSR. The second time verifies the CSR is talking to you, before the CSR can access your data.
Broken_Hippo 10y ago
I worked in an inbound collection center at a telephone company - everyone was late on their bill or recently disconnected. And I foudn out, there are a myriad of reasons for this, depending on where you call. Part of this is to verify identity and verify nothing went awry pulling up your account. If the system even pulled up your account at all. The center I worked had people put in their information, but it didn't forward it to the call center worker. The main benefit of keying the information in is to get you to use the automated system first, but also to route you into the correct call que for your area. You see, different states had different regulations on how fast you needed to answer the calls, some of those had penalties as well. In addition, hours are different in different time zones. Since we serviced coast to coast, this was rather important. Additionally, there is an element of anger diffusion. Folks will call in screaming, yet will generally calm down a little while verifying everything. This is utterly helpful.

toxican 10y ago

I worked briefly at a call center for a company I won't mention. We had that system in place so people could punch in account numbers and we were supposed to get a popup on our screen with all of their info on it. It literally never worked. They'd punch in their numbers, but the popup never appeared once. When my trainer was explaining it to us, all he had to say was "yeah sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't" and there didn't seem to be any concern about getting it fixed. And callers complained, too, so it wasn't like nobody noticed!

VLM 10y ago
From a higher level view at a company that that has a center that customers call into, that strategy is used to create a compliant cooperative customer. Especially if most of them call in screaming. Especially if you might be giving them bad technical or financial news. Presumably it filters out those too angry to type in numbers, while making people in hopeless out of control situations feel they have control in that they're typing in numbers. Its a psyop, mostly. If you let customers type in an account number, for example, people will type in random numbers with a slight preference for numbers beginning with 1. However if all your real account numbers begin with a 400, then you can programmatically exclude all calls with accounts entered that don't match a regex of begins-with-four-zero-zero. That filters out cranks and people who are unqualified to even call. If they enter zero, 9, 1234, just dump them to dialtone. Superficially it sounds like bad security for your seven digit identifier to really be like 4 digits of security because they all begin with 400 but its actually a feature for filtering.
- TeMPOraL 10y ago
  > compliant cooperative customer Tangent, but "Compliant Cooperative Customer" totally sounds like a buzzword companies would use.
  - VLM 10y ago
    ... wasn't just a pipe dream, after all. I worked in telecom in a former lifetime.

wgyn 10y ago

This is what I find so silly. Companies have all this information about you that is actually relevant to their customer support. They could get so much out of making e.g. the phone support system talk to their account system.

fragmede 10y ago
It's easy enough to imagine reasons why. Especially when a business classifies entire divisions as being either a cost or profit center, customer support tends to lose out and be considered a cost center. Every penny that goes into a so-called cost center is then scrutinized and subject to being deemed frivolous. It's no wonder, then, that spending money and engineering time on something that would cause customers to be something unmeasurable, like being slightly less aggravated, is not prioritized or even cut, as being extravagant. To that end, despite Comcast and airlines low customer satisfaction ratings, they seem to be doing alright.

idunno246 10y ago

I used to make ivr software. Usually there's a few different systems involved in a single number, and you may even be transferred between numbers. It's all held together with painters tape, so many places for a bad transfer. When it worked, we could get everything based on caller ID without having to ask, yet "security"

funkymike 10y ago
It is important that the caller provide some information for authentication purposes. Just because someone uses your phone (or spoofs the number) doesn't mean that they should be able to make changes to your account. Lots of companies outsource their IVRs. And everything is all too often cobbled together in a just-make-it-work-right-now fashion.
andrewflnr 10y ago
It's all held together with painters tape I love this. Even duct tape was too expensive, but we have this roll of masking tape, so...

droopyEyelids 10y ago

Companies that deal with sensitive data require not only that you verify your identity, but the customer service rep verify they're talking to you. They're as much concerned with a CSR accessing accounts inappropriately as they are with a fraudster gaining access to customer accounts. And that CSR verification happens by the CSR typing in your information.

CaptSpify 10y ago
Then why do they ask it on the phone to begin with?
- droopyEyelids 10y ago
  The first time verifies you, before you can talk to a CSR. The second time verifies the CSR is talking to you, before the CSR can access your data.

Broken_Hippo 10y ago

I worked in an inbound collection center at a telephone company - everyone was late on their bill or recently disconnected. And I foudn out, there are a myriad of reasons for this, depending on where you call. Part of this is to verify identity and verify nothing went awry pulling up your account. If the system even pulled up your account at all. The center I worked had people put in their information, but it didn't forward it to the call center worker. The main benefit of keying the information in is to get you to use the automated system first, but also to route you into the correct call que for your area. You see, different states had different regulations on how fast you needed to answer the calls, some of those had penalties as well. In addition, hours are different in different time zones. Since we serviced coast to coast, this was rather important. Additionally, there is an element of anger diffusion. Folks will call in screaming, yet will generally calm down a little while verifying everything. This is utterly helpful.