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TIMES POSTCARD
Who’s going to hang it up when you call?
By Rajpal Abeynayake
Have you ever had an out of body experience?
I think I had one recently, when I called my phone banking number.
A disembodied voice asked me if I want my services in English or in Sinhala. You can press 10 buttons almost, to get various kinds of services that you might want. Press number 1 they say for instance, for help with something such as personal banking.You press 1, and there are four other numbers that you can then press to decide which kind of help you want. You listen to those, and you forget why you wanted help in the first place.

Great help. But, anyway, persistence, and maybe a fondness for hearing recorded female voices — if you have that particular psychosis which I don’t — really helps. Finally, I had to play a bit of a game to get out the labyrinthine routine that takes the caller from help menu to help menu to help menu….
The problem is that I did not want automated help this time at all. I just positively wanted to talk to a customer service representative — a living breathing and talking one, because my query was one that the automated recordings could in no way answer.

But, the bank thinks I’m daft to think humans work anymore in their offices.
There is a button anyway that for nostalgia’s sake lets you think there may be a human somewhere there, hiding behind those forests of tape recordings.
I think one particular recording says you need to press 0 on the options menu to “speak to a customer service representative.’’

Being very lonely for a human voice by now, I let my thumb firmly over the 0 button. I must remind you though, I initially I started off being determined to speak to a human only because my query was for a real person.

Ping-ping. As gladly as I thought there was a human voice, there was one on the line. But when I cut in, this human voice went on totally regardless — as if I was intruding on her little speech. I thought that was very rude, but perhaps the female was just irritable that day, in a female kind of way that often happens to females.

So I cut in again — as politely as I could. I had to, not having spoken to a human for the longest telephone call I have had so far in my life without any kind of human contact. But the voice went on — as if it had attitude that just couldn’t give two hoots and a three-quarter.

Then I realized I’ll be darned — the “customer service representative” was a recording. It had just told me “all our customer service representatives are busy”, so would you kindly hold on. Oh, I could live with that for a few minutes I thought — so I held on, but then the recording went on as if it was determined to tell me that the best customer service comes in the form of recordings.

I realized that recordings are not like humans. They just want to rub it in to you but as sweetly as possible. This recoding said that the bank invites customers to use phone banking because you can avoid traffic jams, public holidays and queues, and bank from the comfort of your homes. “Enjoying your banking from the comfort of your home,’’ the voice advised slick as honey again, as if I had a known fetish for listening to female recordings.

I realized that I have been on this “customer service representative” recording for almost 30 minutes now. It’s a recording that goes on a loop — each time it’s over, a more matronly voice adds that “all our customer service representatives are still busy.’’ Then you are back to the previous recording that says you can enjoy your banking without queues traffic jams and banking holidays.

I went on this loop six times — and absolutely scout’s honour I say — over 25 minutes. I realized I could have taken any road route to the bank, and would have been there faster in any kind of traffic.

But I still plucked up some heart to give the recording just one more chance — for automation’s and civilization’s sake and my sake. Then it gave me the best recording an incurable optimist like me deserved. It deadpanned: “We understand your time is precious. Always use our phone banking service.’’ Tra la la — cut to recorded drums. Phone banking is great or what? It never hangs up on you, does it?

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