These things are sent to try us

I was once trapped in telephonic banking call centre hell. I knew that somewhere, beneath multiple layers of helpful recordings, there lurked a well-hidden option to speak to a human agent. The problem was that although I usually managed to speak to a real person with relative ease, this time, my query was of a slightly different nature and I had dutifully followed the electronic instructions for people in my situation. The unfortunate result was that no matter what I tried to do, I was subjected to reams of electronic information, and given no option of going back.

After about three tries, I gave up doing things the right way. I redialled, pretended I had the same request that had always produced a real person in the past, and then sprung upon the unsuspecting agent my real problem. She was able to help me without any difficulty, so I have resolved to opt for this sneaky backdoor route in future.

A movie booking line also used to frustrate me with its ridiculous booking complexities. Prior to the establishment of the electronic cues, the booking agents were pleasant, helpful and well trained. Then, at great cost, an electronic system that purported to be able to understand the speaking of the caller was implemented. Not so. Nonetheless the system was awfully polite. "I`m sorry, I did not understand you," the recording insisted, no matter what inflection, tone or accent you issued in your attempt to pronounce the desired movie title with results.

Fortunately, callers were given the option of barking out the instruction, "operator", at any point that they could no longer tolerate one-sided bargaining with a machine. I don`t know what it was that finally persuaded the movie company to abandon its attempts at going hi-tech, but the system has thankfully been downgraded and now requires one or two button pushes before allowing callers to complete their transaction with the help of professional human agent.

Another call centre that should be abandoned with immediate effect is the drivers` licence booking system. I think that centralising the process was a great idea. In the past, having to spend time queuing at some face-brick government department where a grinning photo of Tata Thabo gazes down at you from his Apartheid-era frame was the kind of thing that could bring on a bout of nervous twitching. However, the fact that it is now impossible to book a drivers` licence is no improvement.

Another call centre that should be abandoned with immediate effect is the drivers` licence booking system.

Georgina Guedes, Editor, ITWeb Brainstorm

What really gets me is that it shouldn`t have been too difficult to calculate the potential call volume. They must have known how many people they processed at each station every day, so surely whoever was figuring out the required number of call centre agents just needed to add these numbers together. Perhaps that`s what they did. They just didn`t think that an hour on hold was an unreasonable amount of time to spend in a call queue. I know of people who have been trying to book their licences for the past three months, but have had to abandon their wait each time.

Perhaps it was the same bunch of people who laid down the strategy for the municipality`s call centre. I doubt that my R12 000 overcharge will ever be resolved by this call centre.

Perhaps this is why SA isn`t becoming the call centre capital of the world, despite ongoing assurances that this is what we are poised to become. In a country where the citizens have had to become inured to a culture of shoddy call centre service to retain their sanity, how can they ever be expected to provide service excellence to the rest of the world?