5 ms·

Thanks. What do you mean about the speak-to-an-employee part?

• patio11 13y ago
  Example: I used to work for a large office supply store. The most common phone call was "I ordered something from you on X. When does it arrive?" You know what I'm going to do, right? Ask you for enough identifying information, find your order in the computer, and then read you the expected delivery date. The most common outgoing call was "Thanks for your fax order. We're calling to confirm receipt, tell you that you didn't calculate the total correctly and the actual price is $42.06 or $3 less than you expected, and inform you to expect delivery tomorrow." This phone call routinely took 20% of order entry time. Everything in that phone call just used me as a voice interface to our database. A Twilio app would have obsoleted an entire floor of employees at that company.
  • jmduke 13y ago
    This kind of anecdote makes me wish it was feasible to shadow a BigCo in a random industry for a week and just spend the entire time taking notes on choke points and practices.
    • barry-cotter 13y ago
      It might be, you could ask. People are also generally quite willing to talk about their jobs, what they do all day, the annoying parts of said jobs. Or you could get a job for a week or a month in a place like that. Actually doing it beats seeing it done for insight.
• tptacek 13y ago
  When's the last time you had to call someone on the phone to get something done that lots of people routinely have to get done? Turn that into a computer program.