“If you know your party’s extension, please press 1. If you want this, press 2. If you want that, press 3. If . . . press 4-5-6, etc.” More and more this is the way we communicate with one another via today’s high-tech telephones. Most callers find it great in theory, lousy in real life. In too many cases, disembodied voices become a run-around with growing frustration as one recording leads to another. What happens when you don’t know your party’s extension or the name of the person you want to speak to? What if your request doesn’t fit any of the pre-recorded categories?
Callers are required to know the organization, who’s who, what’s going on, which department to transfer to and, equally important, how the telephone system works. Some people beat this system by pressing “0,” thereby bringing a warm body to the phone. Even this isn’t foolproof when the caller reaches an interminable hold with music as the only indication that there may be life at the other end of the line, but this will be a long wait. Finally reaching the operator, the caller is transferred without being told to whom and then there is a call-back message that does not include a time to call, setting up telephone tag, another expensive game.
Getting people to call is one of the goals of advertising, making the telephone a connection to the world, leaping over time and space, the invisible net, a verbal handshake. It’s a source of information and confirmation, the ultimate sales tool. Sometimes.
The majority of calls received at ski areas are long distance and, unless it’s an 800 number, expensive. The simple need for information often means listening to a lengthy recording, hearing about events and dates that may or may not be of interest, with no recourse but to hang on, hoping what you wanted to know will finally emerge . . . or hang up. Some areas have only a recorded message saying they’re closed, and don’t give information about when or where a person can be reached, thereby committing a serious breach of business etiquette. Others have someone answer who has no information and can only tell the caller to call back tomorrow.
With most of the high-tech systems, it’s not unusual, after finally reaching your goal, to have an answering machine inform you that your party is unavailable and ask that you leave a message. All this takes time, which, in the telephone world, translates into dollars, an added expense to the caller and of real benefit only to the company who has installed it. Telephones are a convenience, but whose? Some services use recorded messages only, a frustrating experience which often leaves the caller in a state of acute anger and with little recourse.
Ski areas, which are service businesses, actually might reconsider the reinstatement of humans to answer telephones. Machines are cheaper than people and mechanical devices will, no doubt, become more prevalent (remember when answering machines were a novelty?), more complex, more remote, but the telephone is an integral part of doing business and a pleasant voice, professional demeanor and knowledgeable person answering promptly often provides better service. Certainly a friendly voice that is also responsive is more inviting than any recorded message ever could be.
