Michael MaozI’ve gotten nine automated calls from Sallie Mae. I don’t know Sallie. My name is not Erica (that is who they are looking for. I’ve never taken out a student loan from Sallie Mae. I’m in the guise of a modern day Mephistopheles – having helped companies move their processes to self service, the devil is now come to collect dues. I am trying to get out of the system, so I wrote down the telephone number to contact to fix ‘my’ loan problem. You had to guess I couldn’t use the Sallie Mae system unless I also gave the last four digits of ‘my’ social security number, but as I am not the person they want, I can’t get a human.
Yes, after listening to all seven interactive voice responses (IVR, or Inverted Version of Reality), I tried the one that sounded like it might not lead further into a rat hole of sub-menu. The choice yielded a pleasant voice that told me unusually long wait times of 12-16 minutes were to be expected, but I could enter my number and they would call me back.
It all worked out, and I won’t bore you, and the eventual human was terrific and polite. But let’s focus on the customer point of view and not just our own. In this case it was a simple change of number from a Sallie Mae client. It cannot be the most isolated or rare an occurence, but the system is designed from the inside out, and not from the outside in. It might even reduce queue times. Even the best of companies can learn from the voice of the customer, but we need better ways to ‘listen.’ Did you listen to this, Sallie Mae? I’m trying to do right by the both of us.
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