Have you ever called a company, and heard that dreaded response “For xxx, press 1…”? That is known as an IVR (Interactive Voice Response). From the company’s perspective, they are great because it reduces the number of people needed to answer phones. From the caller’s perspective, they can be a mixed blessing.

The thing that bugs me most about them is having to wait for all of the irrelevant options to be listed until I finally hear the option I want. Then you hear an option that might be the thing you are looking for, but it’s not quite, so you hold on for a little bit longer hoping that something better will come along…kind of like dating. And then sometimes you settle for an option, but it turns out not to be the right one for you but you can’t figure out a way to get out of it and go back to another option…also like dating. There is a well-documented way (pdf warning) to get an optimal result 37% of the time, however it only works if you know how many options there are. With an IVR you usually don’t know, so doing complex maths in your head while trying to also follow the options is probably not going to help much.

So how do you solve the problem? One method is to just push zero and hope that it will take you to an operator. There are also websites available that will assist you with getting direct to an operator. Other than that, all I can say is “suck it up, princess”. Unless…

I have seen that some companies have had the foresight to list the options on their website, for example Commonwealth Bank (disclaimer: I am not affiliated with them, am not endorsing them, and do not agree with their practise of paying obscene bonuses to executives during a financial crisis). This is great for callers, as you can navigate quickly and directly to where you want to go.

So why don’t more companies do this? I have worked in organisations with IVRs, but I have never had involvement in the implementation of one, so I can only speculate. I came up with 3 reaons (if you’re in the know let me know, as I’d be interested to learn more):

1. They didn’t think of it. The least likely answer, but let’s not discount it.
2. It is too hard, either for technical or business reasons. You wouldn’t think it would be hard, but working in IT. nothing surprises me! Costs of a small change can easily add up, when you factor in analysis, design, documentation, and testing. The people working on the IVR will typically be a completely different group of people to the ones maintaining the website, so that adds an additional layer of administrative effort.
3. The company doesn’t want callers going directly to the wrong “real people”. IVRs will almost certainly have a path to an operator who will direct calls that don’t fit into any of the categories; if everyone did this it would eliminate the entire purpose of the IVR.

Whichever option you think is most likely will depend on how cynical you are, but if it annoys you enough you could always call and complain.

So here I am, 15 years after they became popular, finally starting a blog.

Why? Well, I guess I’m just tired of people being tired of my opinions on everything.

If a central theme emerges from this blog, I imagine it will be along the lines of “people are idiots”. If the theme turns out to be something else later, such as “there is too much violence in boxing” or “advertising has become too commercial”, then I reserve the right to modify this post later to make it look like I knew what I was doing from the beginning.

“People are idiots” is a reasonably broad statement, and some people may even take offense . In fact, it is entirely possible that you have met one or two people who are not idiots. But if you get a large enough group of people together, one of them will eventually do something that seems stupid to the others. Most of the things that frustrate me in my life can be traced back to someone doing something idiotic. And I’m no exception; I know I’ve frustrated others by doing things that seem idiotic to them.

Why do people do stupid things? Well, there’s a whole variety of reasons. Over time this blog will address them all, and then some, offering some hopefully useful insights into human nature along the way.

So who am I?

I am a business analyst, so the ability to understand people and the kind of idiotic things that they (or more realistically, a small percentage of them) will do is very important for my job.

I love to learn new things, but I only enjoy learning the interesting stuff. I’m not too keen on furthering my formal education because that forces one to learn a bunch of boring bits as well. My preferred method is just to read a whole lot of stuff about a whole lot of topics and then forget most of the details. What remains in my head is mostly useless but often interesting.

About ten years ago, Ms Briggs and her daughter Ms Myers huddled together and whispered intensely; then they turned, pointed at me and proclaimed “ENFP!”.

Actually, I didn’t really have a conversation with two dead women. That was just a metaphor, simile, or aphorism (I never bothered to learn which was which except that it is definitely not an aphorism). It is true though that I was ENFP, though that may have changed in the intervening decade.

Lastly, the Hermann Brain Dominance Instrument, which in spite of its name turns out not to be a Nazi torture device, says that I am blue and yellow. When I was put under pressure, I blue myself right off the chart! It also said I am very critical. I certainly agree to that; one of my strengths is my ability to find fault in everything (one of my weaknesses is in how I react to the faults that I find).

In conclusion, you will find two Cs and see one I.