🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <2886@uhccux.uhcc.hawaii.edu> cs313s03@uhccux.UUCP (.) writes:
>		  You can do other stuff with it as well.  Like use it as
>		  a business voice mail system.  If a customer calls, it
>		  could answer the phone and say hello, then tell the person
>		  to type a key on their phone depending on who they want
>		  to speak to ("Type 1 for tech support, 2 for sales, 
>		  F-R-E-D, to speak to Fred."  or whatever...) F-R-E-D
>		  turns out to be 3-7-3-3 on the phone. Then it could 
>		  try your extension to see if you're in.  If not, it
>		  can say "Sorry, Fred's not in at the moment, if you'd
>		  like to leave a message for him, press 1. Or if you'd
>		  like to speak to someone else, press 2."  

  No.  Mercy, NO.  I have unfortunately been forced to use systems like this.
Have you ever spent time punching touch tones overseas for some moronic menu
system at $4 per minute (they did have some local radio station playing in-
between the call transfers and "please-wait-a-little"'s, so it wasn't a total
loss :-) ?  I ended up waiting around 15 minutes online, and the first human
I spoke to seemed to consider me some kind of a nontechical wimp when I told
her I didn't think it's a good idea to make people wait like that, without
even letting them tell someone what their business is all about.  What if I
only would have wanted to order their latest catalogue ?  They would DEFINITELY
have been losers on that.
  The thing is, systems like this tend to become some kind of replacements
for customer support and technical assistance, and no-one even ever tells them
if everyone is out for coffee...

Otto J. Makela (with poetic license to kill), University of Jyvaskyla

InterNet: makela_otto_@jylk.jyu.fi, BitNet: MAKELA_OTTO_@FINJYU.BITNET
BBS: +358 41 211 562 (V.22bis/V.22/V.21, 24h/d)
Voice phone: +358 41 613 847
Mail: Kauppakatu 1 B 18, SF-40100 Jyvaskyla, Finland, EUROPE