Spitting bullets at word-spotting

Let’s face it, I don’t know anybody who enjoys calling into a call center.

Yes, sometimes we’re calling to order something, and we generally get a very pleasant person - say , some nice women up in Maine who works for LL Bean is really trying to help me figure out whether the Swimming Pool blue t-shirt will look okay with the Tidal Pool blue sweater. But mostly, when it comes to buying something, I’ll do it online, and if I’m on the phone to order, it’s because there’s something confusing or screwy on the web site (someone’s kicked over my shopping cart).

No, for most of us, by the time we’re starting to press 1-800-whatever, we’re frustrated, annoyed, and mad as hell. Let’s see, my recent customer service call was a few days ago to figure out something about my cellphone head set - I only called because I couldn’t find the user information online. In the midst of my conversation with a perfectly helpful CSR, I found what I was looking for, but when I was speaking with him, I was fuming because the darned thing wouldn’t unmute, and I couldn’t figure out what that mysterious black button was for. There were only two possibilities, on or off, but neither seemed to solve the unmute problem. Grrrrr….

This was a relatively easy problem to solve, but I’ve been through others that were more technically challenging. Sometimes I’ve found real assistance on the other end. (My experience with Linksys/Cisco has been pretty good.) Sometimes I’ve gotten the impression that the CSR was just running through a nonsense list of procedures that had nothing whatsoever to do with the problem. ("Madam, if you turn your back on the computer screen, and shrug three times while pressing your right temple with your thumb, it should work.")

I try not to vent to much on the customer service people - it’s a mostly thankless job - but sometimes I get cranky and snippy. (Sometimes I am swearing, but that is never when I’m actually on the phone with someone. I’s when I’m in Menu Hell, when I find myself screaming into the phone, "Oh, yes, I’ll choose Number 4, which I’m sure will just #&@)& get me into another #&*@!#&* round of #*(&@& Menu Hell, thank you." These are the parts of my calls, however, that I actually wish were recorded.)

In any event, I was interested to read a recent article in The Economist (March 8th - it takes me a while to catch up) that described new software for call centers. My favorite application is something called "word-spotting", which, for starters, lets those supervisors who may be listening in keep tabs on the CSR’s without having to listen in on quite so many calls. Word-spotting - as the name implies - spots certain words, with the presumed goal of weeding out reps who say things like "you’re not all that smart, are you?" (and those who get the most, "I’m sorry, could you repeat that again" requests) and rewarding those who say soothing ("I understand" or upselling ("….you might be interested in our new Widget add-on") sorts of things.

Predictably, there’s a company in Bangalore that coaches CSR’s on gaming the system. And, predictably, software that’s trying to keep a step ahead of the gamers (e.g., figuring out when the CSR has prompted a favorable word from the customer).

Not that I’m all that wild about word-spotting when it comes to rating the CSR’s, but I’m really not thrilled at the idea that they’ll be using it on me to gauge my susceptibility to advertising or any clues I might drop about how they can upsell me ("…Have you thought about the Steno Pool blue toreador pants?").

Yes, there are some good uses to word-spotting. In the one cited in The Economist article, a refrigerator manufacturer was alerted to an icebox design flaw when they spotted the words "tipped," "top heavy," and "fell". (Maybe some better testing of the prototypes would have helped here.)

The more sophisticated word-spotting applications do more than just spot the words, they spot the emotional state of the caller.

…Cisco’s voice analysis system monitors parameters including volume, cadence, tone, pitch, and inflection and then sorts callers into six personality types to help agents fine-tune call handling.

Hmmm. All that time I thought Linksys/Cisco was so good, the rep was probably sitting there with a screen full of clues on how to deal with the harridan type.

My favorite part of the article, however, was a quote from the GM of a word-spotting software company called NICE (oy!), who noted that at some companies, supervisors call back customers who display something called "negative excitement" at the end of the call.

Negative excitement? Moi?

All I can say is, if some supervisor wants to call me back after I exhibit such by say, slamming down the phone and cursing, I’d advise them to wait at least half an hour before diving into that particular pool. Better yet, let me sleep on it and call me in the morning.

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