We all love to hate call centres. The endless repetition of "Press 1 for this" and "Press 2 for that", often with options that make it hard to choose. That dreadful announcement that "You are number 54 in the queue". Followed by the inane "Please be patient. Your call is important to us". (If it’s so important, why I am waiting so long?!) Then, when your call is answered 40 minutes later, it is cut off and you have to start again. And when you finally get to speak to a real person, you might still not get an answer to your problem.
Talk to help desk
Over the years, we’ve learnt that user involvement is one of the keys for successful IT projects. I believe this means more than interacting with the few users assigned to the project. It means talking to lots of different users who have different needs and perspectives.
Help desk is one of those groups of users. Call centre operators know what the most common user problems are. It’s not only forgotten passwords. For example: if users often struggle to do something, maybe you need to tweak the user interface.
Better trained support staff also means fewer escalations to IT. I get annoyed when the best advice the call centre can give me is to restart the app or my computer.
Except for last week.
Welcome to the UIF
Last week I had my first experience with the UIF (Unemployment Insurance Fund call centre) and its uFiling system. Our office cleaner retired at the end of last year, and I wanted to find out if she could claim UIF. Because Incus Data pays UIF via the SARS system, I’ve never had to work with uFiling. I wanted to help by doing the application online on her behalf. That means using uFiling.
There were two things that made an impression on me about the UIF call centre:
- I did not have to wait long to speak to someone. Maybe nobody calls them?
- The call centre staff are amazingly friendly.
There were two things that made an impression on me about the uFiling system:
- It has terrible navigation.
- It doesn’t work.
Even worse: nobody expects it to work. The friendly call centre operator told me it is more down than up. She couldn’t access the system either, and read me the error message on her screen. Apparently that’s the status quo. According to her, it is like a cell phone that you have to switch off and on. If my cell phone worked as badly as the uFiling system, I’d throw it out. But the operator was so friendly that I didn’t voice my frustration.
Please rate our service
My call triggered a number of automated emails. One email confirmed my call to the help deak. The next email asked me to review my interaction. Even the link to complete the online survey didn’t work.
The moral of the story? Call center staff are sometimes the victims, and not the villians of our user experience.
Does your team incorporate feedback from help desk? I’d love to hear your views.