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Infrequent But Delicious - The Mike Blog

Dear Rogers, IVR taints your loving image...

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I'm generally a big fan of Rogers - I feel they are probably the best and generally most innovative of the telecom companies here in Canada (Bell, which many people have terrible customer service experiences with - my experience has been the same - and Telus is stuck with CDMA, which doesn't roam well, so that's not good for people who travel.)

The one thing that never ceases to annoy and frustrate me though is their IVR phone system. It's probably been 3 years that I've been calling and every time I get through, I complain and ask them to note it down. They always acknowledge that everyone complains and they say they're working on improving it, but it never happens.

I don't know how they can get it so wrong compared to other industries (airlines, banks, etc.) or even their U.S. competitors like Verizon which have great phone systems! Here are the steps to get to Wireless Customer Service for example:

1. Say "Wireless"
2. Say "Talk to a Representative"
3. Say "Account Changes"
4. Say "Blackberry" or "Phone" (how does this make any sense?)
5. Punch in your Phone Number
6. Be greeted by a representative, who then asks for your phone number again?! Then you have to verify your name, postal code, and DOB. What a waste of time... they should just instead let you pick a PIN and then use that instead.

The best part is that this happens even when you dial 611 from your phone! It could easily detect your number from caller ID and not even bother to ask you anything.

There's a great site called gethuman dedicated to frusturation about IVRs and phone systems, and they've developed a Gethuman Standard for well-designed phone systems. A key point from it:

"# Callers should never be asked to repeat any information (name, full account number, description of issue, etc.) provided to a human or an automated system during a call."

The day that Rogers implements a proper system that does justice to their innovation in so many other areas, I will officially call them a company I love.

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Comments

cherrie Cherrie
February 15, 2008 | 9:18 PM
Loved the rant. TheGingerCompany Ginger Blythin
February 26, 2008 | 1:01 PM I sympatize....
IVRs seem to be everywhere eh? I work for a local Telus dealer here in Niagara as a mobile data specialist. I think that much of the value that we deliver here at our stores is giving people a real, live knowledgeable person to talk to so you don't have to call the 1-800 number.
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