Call center software can re-route angry callers

We've already seen call center software that can determine the age and gender of callers, but a Japanese company called Digital Technologies says its developing software that will take actions based on the emotions of the person on the line. The data is used to rank people on a 1-10 scale of happy to displeased, but it's not clear if the system springs into action after you connect to a real person or if it starts while you try to navigate voice menus -- because if our experiences with Amtrak's "Julie" automated voice agent are any guide, you might as well just rank everyone as "angry" and be done with it.

[Image by Armend Krasniqi]

[Blasko @ Dec 27th 2007 7:10PM]

About Time :-)

[SteveMB @ Dec 27th 2007 7:11PM]

It better not re-route them based on the volume of their voice. There are a lot of CLOSE TALKERS.

[Matthew Hilario @ Dec 27th 2007 7:15PM]

omg stop yelling! why are you so angry!?

[nerdtalker @ Dec 28th 2007 5:45PM]

CAN YOU HEAR ME NOW? GOOD... WAIT, I STILL CAN'T HEAR YOU! CAN YOU TALK LOUDER PLEASE!? I AM HARD OF HEARING!

In all seriousness, I'm amazed by how many call centers (especially sprint) have people that are impossible to hear (way too low volume) or even tell me my connection is bad (oh wait, it's YOUR signal strength that's to blame)...

So what the software can re-route angry callers? The question is who they're gonna get re-routed to...

[Justin @ Dec 28th 2007 4:45AM]

haha! Hilarious!

This thing is pointless, just hire more people and give everybody an agent.

[Jeebus @ Dec 28th 2007 12:23PM]

"just hire more people and give everybody an agent."

Some companies tried that, but it made their products more expensive, hence you didn't buy them.

[applefreak @ Dec 27th 2007 7:15PM]

gosh, those computer menus are frustrating as Heck

most likely because they run on Windows computers :)

[Deluxe @ Dec 27th 2007 8:39PM]

http://images.google.com/images?q=fail

[applefreak @ Dec 28th 2007 5:21PM]

http://www.myteespot.com/images/Images_d/d_7353.jpg

[Elliott @ Dec 27th 2007 7:23PM]

My homie at VZW's call center will be glad to hear this...too bad they didn't have this implemented before he had to work on Christmas when his call queue was well over 280. Funny thing is that he said at least 25% of those calls were angry calls because people didn't understand that you could only use the iPhone with AT&T (or T-Mobile with some sweat).

[Arthur Nonamiss @ Dec 27th 2007 7:35PM]

Oh, I'm sorry, you've ended up in the wrong department. This is abuse. If you're looking for an argument, I'll have to transfer you.

[davesweeps @ Dec 27th 2007 7:37PM]

Julie works better for me than most phone voice systems. Moreover her paralinguistics are more pleasant than most too. She probably is less reluctant to hang up on you when you don't want to get processed in a particular way.

[Vince @ Dec 27th 2007 7:44PM]

When I talk to call centers I usually am as calm as possible, but the words I say usually provide results. A recently experience would be with Rock Band(broken strum bar, bad drum heads, and unreadable disc) The guitar and drums returns were not a problem, but 20 minutes on the phone on how software and hardware warranty's differ became the problem. Long story short, I didn't have to pay 20 dollars for a new disc. It was FREE!

[RwK @ Dec 27th 2007 7:47PM]

This is humorous. Siemens *never* said they had software that could determine the age/gender of a caller. It would only "indicate" (read: guess) those attributes. There wasn't any mention of forecast success or failure rates.

Further proof that on the internet, much like other mediums, people don't write well, they certainly don't research thoroughly, and most there's little to no editorial contribution. Bon appetit.

[GreatWhiteHibachi @ Dec 27th 2007 8:12PM]

I could swear that Verizon already has something like this. I had an issue where I had to talk to a manager, but the queue was so long I'd be on hold for 20 minutes than I'd get disconnected. So every time I had to go through the stupid voice menu and one time I just screamed out "F U" out of frustration, and it went straight to a call center person. I did it like three times afterwards, too.

[mik @ Dec 27th 2007 8:17PM]

probably because it doesnt recognize "F U"... if you say jibberish(ie. "abba zabba") it should direct you to a rep too..

[Dirkus @ Dec 27th 2007 10:06PM]

Actually, as I understand it (may be talking from my butt here) most call center ACD (Automated Call Directing) systems recognize both the words they prompt you for like "support" or "sales", and also recognize "four-letter words" like the F-bomb, Sh*t, Crap, and so on and so on. If they detect several of those words in succession, the system will try to route you to a live call director.

Pro tip for talking to someone quickly: Pick the wrong product in the menu. Seriously.

Let's say you call a major electronics manufacturer like Canon or HP or whomever. You get in queue for the Printer department, and the nice computerized voice tells you your approximate wait time to speak to a tech is like... 8 days. Bummer. Hang up, then call back, and pick some queue that you know does NOT get a lot of calls, like say support for digital calculators. You'll get to a live tech MUCH faster, it'll just be the wrong one. No problem, they'll transfer you over to printers. The trick here is that since they're transferring internally, you get bumped to the front of the line! And before anyone calls shenanigans on this one, I actually WORK for a Major Electronics Manufacturer's call center in the training department. I'm aware of how OUR call center is configured. Granted, not every one is configured the same way, but it's my understanding that most are similar.

Enjoy!

[iOrange @ Dec 27th 2007 8:17PM]

I work at a call center, (they are paying for me to go to grad school) and make and take hundreds of calls everyday.. I like this idea.. there are so many people who call in that are furious and end up in the wrong department because they cannot navigate the menus.. If they could just forward the angry people to a live person, (like me) the problem can be resolved quickly and not make the person more angry by having to go through more menus... (believe it or not, I do like resolving YOUR issues...)

[R1cebrner @ Dec 27th 2007 10:09PM]

You seem to be real happy with your call center where do you work? Id rather be there than where im at because i still get all the angry people. Feels like there is an option on our prompts that say if your in a pissy mood press 2 for me.

[omegajp @ Dec 27th 2007 8:29PM]

I'm not sure this kind of software would catch on... it would just become a different way to route the calls, which doesn't really provide much of a difference. I work in a call center for a health insurance company--we have so many angry members simply because of ignorance, which is their own fault--so we don't support them being angry, we educate them. We're trained to ignore requests for supervisors or managers simply because it is a waste of time. Usually the person you are speaking to can do what you are looking for--it's just that you end up asking for a supervisor because of this mentality that you're going to get more for some reason (you're not!). Getting angry is not a good idea when dialing into a call center, nor is software that's probably going to route somewhere you might not be able to get proper help (ex. Appeals/Grievance/Anger Diffusion/Management).

[nathan @ Dec 27th 2007 9:30PM]

> I work in a call center for a health insurance company... We're trained to ignore requests for supervisors

I knew it. Insurance is different - it's in their best interests to deny and ignore people's requests and complaints - they get more money. HR depts of companies determine which company they go with, and they already got wined and dined, so the end employee probably can't do much anyways, so, f**k em. For other companies, they do want to keep their customers happy (to an extent).

[omegajp @ Dec 27th 2007 9:55PM]

I think you misunderstood my post. We are trained to ignore the requests because we can resolve the situations ourself (pay claims as exceptions, resolve issues, etc) instead of having a seperate department to route the calls. I have never put a member of our insurance company in a bad situation when it's something they don't understand or can't resolve themselves--I usually just have the claim paid if it's within my limits (usually around $1000.00) and if we haven't done it before. I certainly do care about people's health.

Everyone has this misconception about health insurance and that we just like to deny claims. Let me give you an example: Today a man called, said his wife had laser ablation surgery on her veins and paid for it out of pocket, didn't use anyone in the network and didn't follow our guidelines, and was upset that the claim didn't pay when they submitted it themselves. Why should this surprise anyone? It's like expecting a car insurance company to pay for a new car just because you got a scratch on your current one, and decide to go buy a new car yourself and you want them to reimburse you. Sounds ridiculous, doesn't it? It's the same situation.

If you choose to avoid the rules that you agreed to in our contract, we have every right to deny claims. But again, that's why we educate, and pay the claims, so it doesn't happen again, as long as it doesn't scream fraud and we have a doctor's credentials to back it up by their license.

What a moronic response to my post. Why don't you read it in full next time instead of highlighting a portion of it to make it sound negative to use in your post?

[R1cebrner @ Dec 27th 2007 10:11PM]

Now this is more our speed, and if you do happen to need one good luck finding one that is willing to take the call

[Lin @ Dec 27th 2007 11:04PM]

Most call center workers I have dealt with are trained to read from a script. They will repeatedly give you the same incorrect answer no matter what you tell them. They all treat customers as if the customers are stupid morons. Most of the time they are non-responsive and then when the customer asks to speak to a manager, they "ignore' these requets and start talking down to the customer. And heaven help you if you speak loud because you are hard of hearing, that means you are "yelling" and are therefore abusive, even if you are trying to be assertive and actually speaking in your normal voice. The automatic voice prompts are horrible, they are completely designed to NOT send you to the right department (a two year old is more likely to transfer the call correctly).

[Philippe @ Dec 27th 2007 8:50PM]

Press 1 if you are angry, otherwise wait until you get angry, then press 1.

[Brent @ Dec 27th 2007 9:10PM]

But which way is this intended to work? Angry callers get placed into an absurdly huge queue operated only by 2 absolute morons? People who literally cannot tell their ass from a hole in the ground. While the calm, generally pleasant people get rewarded for their good demeanor by being placed at the head of the queue and their calls answered by nice, professional, intelligent staff? Because here's the thing, if a company starts rewarding assholes, I'm out. I will call and nicely tell said company such, apparently after waiting for quite a long time. What is the world's obsession with appeasing pricks?

[Mike10010100 @ Dec 28th 2007 12:03AM]

If only this was how everything in the world worked...

[ekwmin @ Dec 28th 2007 12:27PM]

Interesting point. Unfortunately we already do that too much. Especially in restaurants. The A***es who yell and scream that their refill didn't come fast enough get their meal comped and get a free gift card, while the nice understanding party might get just an apology if their steak is cooked the wrong way and had to wait another 15 minutes. Knowing this some people take advantage by always complaining and making a big scene about the smallest thing. Fast food restaurants are especially susceptible to this since the last thing a manager wants is corporate to have another complaint against them on file. But then there are those companies that need to get yelled at... Anyone ever try to cancel their AOL or IGN account? It's sad when your credit card company offers to change your account number.

[Raj Madhure @ Dec 27th 2007 10:02PM]

Tell me about something new. This software has already been around for some time. I run a large call center, and we're in the process of implementing it right now. If a caller's voice sounds angry or emotional, the system automatically red flags the call and creates an action for a supervisor to check in. Here's the software: http://www.nice.com/products/multimedia/contact_centers.php. I'm not sure yet how effective it is because we're just rolling it out right now, but we've been testing it and it looks pretty good.

[dcny @ Dec 27th 2007 10:36PM]

What the hell i want to know is why cant companies offer tech support 24 /7, if your called is being routed to the Phillipines, Costa Rica, Colombia or India there in different time zones so whats stopping them from 24/7 tech support they don't pay much already how much more would it cost.

[Dirkus @ Dec 27th 2007 11:37PM]

Well, you've got to understand how corporations see call centers: giant money holes.

For instance, a company sells you a camera for $199. It costs them maybe $80 in parts, they sold it to the retailer for $30 less than you paid for it, (retailers have to make their margin, you know!), plus it cost them, lets say $3 or $4 per unit for shipping from Japan to your local Beast Buy warehouse. Out of the $199 you paid, they're only seeing about $85.

Still a decent margin, Right? Now think about how much of that gets eaten by tech support.

For every on-duty tech you've got, you have to have a computer, lights, phone (not just any phone, normally a super fancy Aspect Teleset or something like that) plus all the infrastructure, supplies and facilities to back that stuff up (knowledge management system, customer contact database, intranet, internet access, call routing system, furniture, blah blah blah...). THEN, you've got to PAY the freaking techs and give them bennies. Now, I work in a small call center (about 450-475 techs) on the east coast. These guys are being brought in at somewhere around $10 an hour, give or take a buck or two depending on their credentials. We've got about 40 techs on duty in the camera department at all times covering various product lines, plus an overlap where we have about 45-50 around midday. Sure, staffing slacks off at night, but there's still a CRAPLOAD of techs to pay, even in just that one department. And my company doesn't charge for tech support on cameras. Ever. Lifetime free tech support, even if you found a dusty old 35mm SLR from the 70's in an estate sale for a nickel, you can still call us and talk with a tech for as long as it takes to fix your problem, just like the owner before you, and the owner before that. They might have made a healthy margin on that camera back in the day, but now that you're calling asking how to load the film, or what lenses will work on it or whatever, that camera is probably LOSING the company money in a BIG WAY.

That shiat gets expensive dude.

So, as you can see, tech support doesn't make any financial sense at ALL. The only reason that companies provide it is because they want repeat sales, and a good reputation with customers. A happy customer will be a repeat customer, and will recommend you to their friends. More sales means more profit, and hopefully only a few of them will ever have to call tech support.

The trick is, you have to find the right balance between happy customers and that giant, gaping, money-gobbling maw that is "tech support" And THAT is why so many companies don't provide 24/7 support.

[Irfan @ Dec 27th 2007 11:52PM]

So for you people working in call centers... does ANYTHING actually get recorded? I called to cancel my ATT contract ... they said it was cancelled... checked online a week later... still active so I call to verify. They say they dont have a record of me cancelling but that it is now cancelled.

2 months later I was still getting bills. called them back, and they said i never cancelled! called back and talked to someone else who also knew nothing... put me thru to his supervisor (i love how they always says 'well the supervisor will just tell you what im telling you right now. he wont be able to do anything'). supervisor has no record of me cancelling but atleast sees i never used the phone since 10/11/2007 and after 30 minutes he agrees to refund the last two months... after it goes thru billing of course. Im guessing when i call in after a month with no refund, i will get the same story that they have no idea of what im talking about.

so back to the question... do you guys actually record stuff from the convos? there isnt much i can do on this end short of recording the call myself. I mean i can get the persons name and a reference number, but that does me no good when nothing is noted on their end.

[Jason @ Dec 28th 2007 1:06AM]

If you work for a health insurance company, I can understand why you get so many angry callers. You're working in an industry that profits from bait-n-switch and toying with people's health and lives. However, I cannot understand why you seem to resent people who resist such an industry or try to stick up for themselves.

[Andrew @ Dec 28th 2007 8:24AM]

OMG DOES ANYBODY ON ENGADGET NOT WORK IN A CALL CENTRE???!!!

[hotwings1 @ Dec 28th 2007 8:45AM]

I absolutely love Japan, but honestly, what kind of a name is Digital Technologies? A bit lack luster. Maybe they were bored to death when they coined the name and said oh what the hell lets just give this company a name and get it over with.

[Speddy @ Dec 28th 2007 9:28AM]

And they are calling in the first place because???

[Schweppes7T4 @ Dec 28th 2007 10:29AM]

I work in an outsourced call center for a certain large supplier of flash memory... In the QA department now, so its actually pretty fun (though the day after christmas I had to take calls again... about 4x as many calls as usual). Dealing with angry customers really isn't a big deal once you get used to it. We get a lot of people that claim they know a lot of about computers (them: "I spend all day building and fixing computers") but actually know nothing (me: "alright, well lets format that card" them: "...what's that mean?")

I can't speak for other centers, but I do know that everything here is recorded (even holds sometimes... keep singing along to the hold music, it makes me laugh). Also, everything should always be recorded. If they say there's no record of it, then either someone isn't doing their job, or the company is working with crap. Usually there's an audit trail for everyone who's touched a case. Also, get a case or confirmation number, that should always be generated when something has been done.

Just remember that a lot of times the people at the call center aren't making great money (I only make about $11/hr), and unless you get someone who actually enjoys what they do... it can get repetitive... and boring. If you've ever worked in retail, you know that the crap customers yell about is normally out of your control... its the same in a call center.

Now... telemarketers and outbound calls... that's a different story...

[Tessa @ Dec 28th 2007 10:32AM]

I work for a credit card company and we sure as hell get a lot of angry callers ("Oh my god, I can't believe you gave me a late fee! I was only one day late!"). As for people ending up in the wrong department... well, we can blame that on operator (both employee and customer) and system errors. Sometimes, a department will change their number and it won't get updated in the call transfer system -- so it's just as frustrating for us as it is for the customer who keeps getting routed to the wrong place.

As to the question of calls being monitored and/or recorded -- yes, calls do get recorded. But not all calls are saved in the system. I do know that in the call center I work in that if we actually bring up your account during the conversation (which sometimes doesn't happen...I can't even begin to count the number of calls I've gotten where the customer refuses to give the account number, but demands that we do something), the account is automatically documented with the date, time, and login ID of the person answering the call.

My advice? Definitely write down the name of the person you're speaking with, as well as the date and time. Also ask them what call center they're in. We have 15 call centers around the United States, so asking for location is a great identifier. That way, when you call back in with an unresolved issue, we can try to get back to the person who was supposed to deal with it in the first place.

And more advice? Don't immediately demand a manager. As omegajp mentioned, most of the time, an associate can handle the issue without a manager being needed at all. And try not to be angry with the rep that you speak with--the problem isn't their fault, and it's much easier to get good customer service when you're not being an asshole.

As far as the new software goes, I don't really see it catching on. We don't have an "angry customer" department. All the service calls come to the same initial people, regardless of what the complaint is.

[OneLove @ Dec 28th 2007 10:51AM]

Angry customers get directly transferred to a busy tone. What ever happened to real customer service? You can't even punch numbers anymore...please say 1 or 2?...am sorry, I didn't understand, please repeat...am sorry, I didn't understand, please repeat.

[Robert B @ Dec 28th 2007 11:49AM]

when i worked tech support for gateway, our calls would get recorded. however most of these recordings were used for instructional purposes and training. most of the responsibility for documenting calls and details fall on the agent on the phone. granted i didnt always document everything as i should but i always tried to provide my customers with all needed and helpful information to give to the next tech should they ever need to call back. its not the agents fault that the customer is calling unless the previous agent was a complete idiot. I had to clean up plenty of mess ...some made by people in the same room as me just a few minutes earlier! educating the caller with the correct information (without talking down to them) and resolving the issue will ALWAYS leave everyone in a better mood at the end of the call.

my $0.02

[Jonathan @ Dec 28th 2007 1:00PM]

Rogers Wireless has something like this. Last year I was walking along the street and I called in and it was one of those "tell us what you're calling about" systems. I said "agent" ant it kept asking me questions "in order to get you to the correct agent..." I was so pissed. I started yelling "AGENT AGENT AGENT AGENT AGENT" (walking down the street mind you - I was one of *those* people) and it connected me to a person *right* away.

[Guywb @ Dec 28th 2007 1:32PM]

What a GREAT IDEA! Have a voice response system that can't understand you ask inane, pointless questions in a condecending tone to direct you, multiple times to the wrong department until you blow your top. Then, it transfers you to some idiot in another country that not only has no clue what they are talking about but also has an accent so thick you can't understand them, and has so poor a grasp of english that they cannot understand you. Then talks to you like you are an idiot as they read from a script while ignoring the fact that you have already told them them entire problem. I mean, why should the customer get angry? They have only spent big $$ on the product and the support system is designed to cause them to get so frustrated that they want to throw the product out the window.

Companies really need a system to determine when the customer gets angry, then the one or two that don't can get sent to the back of the line.

[Jeremy @ Dec 28th 2007 1:36PM]

As others are saying this is not new at all. I'm usually pretty calm, but someone told me about this 3 years or so ago and ever since then I've always yelled at any system that responds to voice commands. It's actually a lot of fun. For the systems that don't do it you can generally press and hold the zero key for about 30 seconds and it will get around even the most stubborn system.

[Shakes @ Dec 28th 2007 2:52PM]

I hate Julie, she never can do anything right and she always gives me options I never asked for. But boy is she sassy...

[Wwhat @ Dec 28th 2007 3:45PM]

"you might as well just rank everyone as "angry" and be done with it."

Now you've done it, you gave away their patented secret technology.

[jodosh @ Dec 30th 2007 8:41AM]

now I just need to get angry to get better service?