Voice recognition - Arghhh

Mad Mike

The latest trend in customer service seems to be voice recognition. I consider this a major step back from the touch tone systems that these are replacing. Having recently moved house I have had to struggle with Eircom and the ESB's brand shiny new voice recognition systems.

A friendly voice asks you to speak naturally and select from Sales, Service etc or to speak your account number into the computer. In my experience however the voice recognition isn't up to scratch and it is inevitable that you will end up shouting into the telephone and of course the more frustrated you get the less likely it is that the system can recognise your voice. This is all very hilarious for your colleagues in the office but doesn't do much for your bloodpressure.

Please Please Please bring back touch tone systems - these may be frustrating but at least they give the user some control over what is going on.

And now I have a bizarre hint for anyone fighting the Eircom voice answering system - I have found that if I speak in a silly chinese accent (ala Charlie Chan movies) it has a much better recognition rate than if I speak in my normal south Dublin accent. Still results in enormous embarassment in the office but at least it gets the job done.

Hobbes

The US systems were designed to detect profanities and then move you to a personal operator. Or just hit buttons and confuse the hell out of the system. That will get you to a person.

Chalk

eircom and esb both accept key tone inputs.

i dont like the way eircoms one tries to act like its a person your talking too.

seamus

Irritates the hell out of me. I feel like a plonker talking on a phone when I'm not talking to anyone.

I think next time I have to deal with any of these systems, I'll try Hobbes's "mash the keypad" trick.

steveland?

seamus wrote:

I think next time I have to deal with any of these systems, I'll try Hobbes's "mash the keypad" trick.

High tech problem... low tech solution

ionapaul

Chalk wrote:

eircom and esb both accept key tone inputs.

i dont like the way eircoms one tries to act like its a person your talking too.

"I'm sorry, I don't actually deal with that myself. Please hold, and I'll transfer you to someone who can help."

What a nice conversationalist!

stevenmu

Hobbes wrote:

The US systems were designed to detect profanities and then move you to a personal operator. Or just hit buttons and confuse the hell out of the system. That will get you to a person.

Some of them detect voice stress levels too, I haven't tried it here yet but screaming abuse down the phones in the states worked pretty well.

Pet

Ahh yes, Iarnrod Eireann have it now too. It's awfully polite for a machine, but it couldn't understand a kerry accent, and I had to shout and roar until it transferred me to a human operator. Except there was no operator, only an engaged tone. A soar in blood pressure and much profanity ensued.

kasintahan

Pet wrote:

Ahh yes, Iarnrod Eireann have it now too. It's awfully polite for a machine, but it couldn't understand a kerry accent, and I had to shout and roar until it transferred me to a human operator.

I don't understand a Kerry accent, so how the hell a machine is supposed to is beyond me.

sceptre

kasintahan wrote:

I don't understand a Kerry accent, so how the hell a machine is supposed to is beyond me.

It might have been a Kerry machine.

tSubh Dearg

I hate UGC's new voice activated ticket booking thing. I always for get to say zero when it asks how many child tickets i want (for example) i say none instead and then it says "you want nineteen child tickets?" very annoying.

I also feel like such an eejit talking to a non existant person

Gone West

yes v/r is just not advanced enough for large scale usage on thesse systems

L5

To get transferred to an operator just cough, it confuses the software and detects you have a problem it cannot help you with

Mad Mike

Pet wrote:

Ahh yes, Iarnrod Eireann have it now too. It's awfully polite for a machine, but it couldn't understand a kerry accent

I hadn't considered that - if these machines can't understand my relatively bland South Dublin tones how on earth can they deal with someone with a much richer accent. Have you tried my Charlie Chan trick - Speak in a silly chinese voice - believe it or not it actually works.

jor el

I must say I've had no problems with the Eircom service. It picked up what I was saying perfectly. I did like the bit at the end when he says "I'm sorry, I don't actually deal with that myself. Please hold, and I'll transfer you to someone who can help." That was kind of funny since he's no more than a voice over for their annoying ad campaign.

Creamy Goodness

the worst is 11811,

would you like to be connected please say yes or no.

NO, it's costing me enough as it is

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