Emily is Annoying

I wish I could meet the techno whizzes who invented the annoying "voice" you hear when you phone Bell Canada's "interactive" phone line -- so I can strangle them.

"Hi my name is Emily, how may I help you?" How about a real freakin person to talk too! You annoying heartless piece of nano technology.

Emily -- if you haven't had the pleasure -- is the interactive voice Bell Canada employs to seduce callers into doing the work receptionists and customer service agents used to. They will tell us it's better for us.

Ya right! They're downloading work onto customers, and then charging us for the pleasure. Evil geniuses, they are.

Call me crazy, but I don't like to have two-way conversations (as opposed to leaving a message) with machines. That's why I press zero a gazillion-times-per-second while screaming, "can a human please answer!"

But the multiplying machines are not moved: Instead a mechanical voice, which sounds suspiciously like my Grade 2 teacher, says: "I'm sorry, I didn't understand." Or, worse: "I'm sorry, that is not an option. Goodbyyyyeeeee!"

Click.

Yes, that is the sound of the line going dead after you've been on hold for 20 minutes, listened impatiently to five sets of options -- delivered s-l-o-w-l-y -- pressed your way through everything but "if you'd like to make funeral arrangements press one," and listened to a recording of the "Privacy Policy" for the 100th time!

I remember the message from Terminator movies and I refuse to let The Machines win!

Companies, in their efforts to eliminate positions that don't bring in revenue, may have forgotten just how many sales are made by, god forbid, humans.

Take banks. They got us onto ATMs, the web, and debit cards. But they lost easy access to us for the big sales: mortgages, loans, RRSPs.

This only creates distance and alienation between customers and themselves. And possibly creating a new form psychosis. Can you say: "phone rage?"

And you can bet managers making these decisions are not forced to talk to Emily -- or any of the other docile-toned (until you press the wrong button when they get downright cranky) voice systems. That's what their secretaries (live ones, I presume) are for -- and they're probably billing a lot of overtime these days!

So how much does a "date" with Emily really cost?

How much production is lost when you have thousands of employees across the country pleading with robots for a person to make a sale to, clicking on websites -- because The Voice directed them to -- for contact info, wasting 15 minutes in voicemail hell to book an appointment, or caught on "hold" at a call centre where the person can't actually answer a question anyway -- because they're not contracted to. Or is that "programmed.

Factor in lost sales, alienation of customers, and lost productivity when will they realize this has not been a good investment.

Emily? Don't you mean HAL? Remember the computer from 2001: A Space Odyssey who gave the ominous warning "I know you were planning to disconnect me, and I'm afraid that's something I cannot allow to happen"

To borrow another line from the movie, I say to the creators of Emily "This conversation can serve no purpose anymore. Goodbye."

Later,
Kenaz