This application directs the communications between agents at any branch and allows management to guarantee a customer is completely satisfied.

There seem to be two views of thought as to how to maximize utilization:

1. Make it as difficult as possible for the caller to transfer to a CSR. Typically, systems that fall in this category don’t offer to transfer the call until after the determined caller has listened to the opening prompt several times. Speaker phones are an effective counter-measure to such systems: Just put the VRU on the speaker phone and wait it out while you do something productive. One such system tricked me — once: “Please enter your account number.” Long pause. “Please enter your account number.” Another long pause. “If you don’t have an account number, press 1.” Foolishly, I pressed 1 and it had me. I could no longer pretend I didn’t have a Touch Tone phone. It then gave me a menu, something like, leave a message or receive a fax — not to talk to a CSR. So I hung up and called back. This time, I gave no input until I was speaking to a CSR. Since then, I’ve paid off my balance and no longer use their credit card.

What a waste of their VRU and phone resources –

Their message to their customers is, “You are like cows, to be prodded, herded and milked.”

2. Make the system open, easy to use with easy access to a CSR. Since callers will find a/the way to transfer to a CSR, make it convenient. What value can there be in the long run making it a contest for your customers to receive service? You know you have a successful system if you have an outage and more than a few customers, surprised at being transferred to a CSR say, “The system is down? That’s all right, I’ll call back later.”