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• Rage Against The Machine

paul english monday, 7 august 2006
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gethuman project

• change the face of customer service in the US
• started as ivr cheat sheet on paulenglish.com
  2005
• launched as gethuman.com Feb 2006
• over one million website visitors in first month
• over 100,000 web references to this project
• shortcuts to bypass IVR to get to a human
• we are not a business
• we are not anti-technology
• we are pro-consumer and pro-business
• new gethuman standards being published soon

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the humans behind gethuman

• paul english - founder software entrepreneur
• lorna rankin - project manager
• millions of site visitors, thousands of emails
• industry advisors including
• walt tetschner (asr news)
• walter rolandi (vui expert)
• michael liu - community forums manager
• sixteen category volunteers (listed on website)

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gethuman press coverage
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gethuman 500these are the companies most
calledand which drive consumersthe most crazy (
Automotive? ?AAA ? ?Allstate ? ?Chrysler ???
?Ford GMAC Honda Nissan Saturn Thrifty
Toyota ?VW Credit American Express
ATT Universal Bloomingdales Credit Capital
One Chase ChevronTexaco Citi Simplicity
Discover Exxon Mobil Card Juniper Bank
Marshall Fields Credit MasterCard MBNA
Providian Visa Finance Allmerica Financial
Ameriquest Ameritrade Bank of America
Charles Schwab Citibank Citizens Bank
Columbia Mutual Funds Compass Bank
Countrywide Loans Dodge and Cox eTrade
Equifax Fidelity Free Credit Report.com
Financial GMAC Mortgage ING Direct Mellon
Merrill Lynch MetLife Bank Primerica
Prudential Sallie Mae Smith Barney State
Farm SunTrust T. Rowe Price TD Waterhouse
TIAA-CREF TransUnion Upromise Vanguard
Funds Wachovia Washington Mutual Wells
Fargo Western Union Government Citizenship
and Immigration Dept. of Veterans Affairs
Federal Trade Commission US Homeland Security
FEMA IRS US Postal Service Social Security
Admin Hardware Apple Brother International
Cisco Systems Compaq Dell Epson Fujitsu
PC Support Gateway Hewlett-Packard IBM
Linksys Palm Toshiba Xerox Insurance
AARP Aetna AIG Allstate Blue Cross and
Blue Shield CIGNA Delta Dental GEICO
Humana Liberty Mutual Medicare MetLife
Nationwide Principal Life Progressive
Insurance United Health Care Internet
Amazon.com America Online CompuServe
Earthlink eBay GoDaddy Napster NetFlix
NetZero PayPal Yahoo Mobile Alltel
Cellular One Cingular Motorola Nextel
T-Mobile TracFone Virgin Mobile Pharmacy
Aetna Rx Home Delivery Caremark Drugstore.com
Eckerd Express Scripts MEDCO Rite Aid
Walgreens Products Bosch Bose Briggs
Stratton Canon Casio GE Appliances
Glucerna Holmes Honeywell Hoover John
Deere KitchenAid Kodak Magnavox Maytag
Nikon Nokia Panasonic Philips Electronics
Pitney Bowes Playstation RCN Samsung
Sealy Sharp Sony Texas Instruments
Whirlpool Xbox XM Radio Shipping DHL
Fed Ex UPS Software Adobe Computer
Associates Microsoft QuickBooks Symantec
Stores Best Buy BJ's Wholesale Circuit City
CompUSA Costco Home Depot JC Penney LL
Bean Lowe's Macy's Office Depot Office
Max Radio Shack Sam's Club Sears Staples
Wal-Mart Telco ATT BellSouth MCI
Sprint Verizon Vonage Travel Air Canada
AirTran Alaska Airlines American Airliines
Amtrak Budget Rent a Car Carnival Cruise
Cheap Tickets Cheaptrips.com Continental
Delta Expedia.com Greyhound Hilton HHonors
Holiday Inn Jet Blue Northwest Airlines
Orbitz Priceline Southwest Travelocity
United ? ?US Airways Virgin Atlantic TV /
Satellite Adelphia Cablevision Comcast
Direct TV DISH network Sirius TiVo
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why do we care? (1 of 3)

• From Montie K
• Date Dec 8, 2005 947 PM
• My mother is 82 years old and is so frustrated
  with
• the IVR systems. She usually just hangs up.
• When it is really important, she has called me
  crying
• and has asked me to do the calling for her.
• She is hard of hearing and has difficulty
  following
• all the instructions.
• It makes her feel stupid and not capable to take
  care
• of business anymore.
• It has taken away her independence and dignity.

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why do we care? (2 of 3)

• From Bill R
• Date Dec 15, 2005 1235 AM
• Five years ago I survived a stroke. Well, sort
  of with the
• loss of my right side, negotiating IVRs and
  telephone trees
• has been an unending source of frustration.
  Having the
• cheat list is truly an answer to prayers. Now
  some companies
• have switched to 100 voice activated systems.
  Even though
• experts say my speech is 100 rehabilitated,
  there is
• no voice-activated IVR that can understand my
  responses.
• SBCs customer prevention system recently reduced
  me to
• tears. When I said agent the system replied
  You indicate
• you want to make a payment. And I was
  transferred!
• I finally emailed corporate HQ and the following
  day a real
• person called me.

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why do we care? (3 of 3)

• From Deborah D.
• Date Mar 14, 2006, 850 AM
• I saw your segment on the Today Show and I just
  wanted to say
• thank you. I stutter and when I get an automated
  message,
• the computer does not understand what I am trying
  to say.
• Again, thank you.

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always need gethuman option

• upset, need empathy of a human
• consumers with special needs
• elderly caller, intimidated by computers
• speech impediment, stroke victims, etc
• hard of hearing, calling from cell phoneor from
  a noisy place
• already knows the IVR will not help

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citi simplicity
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ceo disconnect

• call centers mistakenly run as cost centers
• bonus call center VP for costs,guess what
  happens?
• marketing spends money to reach customers, call
  centers spend to hide from customers
• customer contact should be an asset
• protect and strengthen the brand and loyalty
• real-time product improvement based on feedback
• valuable marketing research for future products
• creative marketing, IVR 88 contests

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• Nearly seven out of 10 consumers say they are
  less likely to do business with a company after a
  bad call center experience. Call Center
  Performance -- America Speaks Opinion Research
  Corp.December 2005

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gethuman must haves

• dial zero to queue for a human
• or ideally, human answer (maybe dedicated lines)
• provide estimated wait time
• offer call back option
• let callers interrupt when appropriatedo not
  force unnecessary prompt content
• do not disconnect for user errorsinstead route
  to human
• allow caller to rate the call
• extra credit
• provide caller their audio transcripts online

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must have while you are holding

• updated approximate wait time
• offer to call back
• if you play hold music, let me disable it
• (extra credit let me choose it -)
• if you play ads, let me disable them
• do not repeat the same ad over and over

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must nots

• verbosity of any kind
• patronizing personas
• annoying phrases such as
• your call is important to us
• please listen carefully, as our menu
  optionshave changed
• you can access our website to answer most
  questions

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hi, im julie
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must remember

• do not ever make a caller repeat information
• entering sixteen digit account numbersis
  difficult for many people to do
• option just use my caller id and PIN

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language choice

• for US, assume english by default
• dial 9 to change language
• default to last setting via caller id
• note to banks encode language choiceon the ATM
  card

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revolution, not evolution

• customers demand better service
• reward the best vendors, buy more
  products/services, tell your friends
• punish the worst, cancel your service, switch to
  other vendors
• company ceos
• stop mistreating your customers
• customer support is not a cost center
• protect your brand, grow customer loyalty

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• www.gethuman.com
• paul.english_at_gethuman.com
• 1 781 648-1500