The Squawk Point

Organisational Mechanics

  • Home
  • Blog
    • People
    • Data
    • Process
    • Wild Cards
    • Index
  • Podcast
  • Book

Clever Capital Investment or Shiny New Toy?

2 August, 2011 by James Lawther Leave a Comment

If you have ever called a call centre, no doubt you have used an IVR (interactive voice response, press 1 to change your address…press 2 to…  you get the idea).

The public is generally a little damming about them, to quote Wikipedia:

“IVR is sometimes criticised as being unhelpful and difficult to use due to poor design and lack of appreciation of the caller’s needs”

However, they answer so many calls and are so cost effective it is unlikely that we are going to lose them any time soon.

In response to the public’s criticisms, many businesses are investing in more and more sophisticated technology, that allows customers to talk to the IVR which in turn can understand what they say.  This makes them more “human”.  Click the play button below and you can hear the results for yourself.

A classic case of process improvement right?

Well maybe not.  Maybe a classic example of shiny new toys.

I know using Wikipedia as the font of all knowledge is a dangerous thing, but to re-quote:

“IVR is sometimes criticised as being unhelpful and difficult to use due to poor design and lack of appreciation of the caller’s needs“

Just because the technology can understand some of the words your customers say doesn’t mean it is well designed and can appreciate the callers needs.

Perhaps figuring those needs out first would be a good place to start.

The logic applies equally well to any fancy investment, a GUI, a letter sorter, an automated queuing system.

Is that capital investment fixing a customer service problem?  Or is it a shiny new toy?

Capital Investment DecisionImage by Chris Toombes

Read another opinion

Filed Under: Blog, Operations Analysis Tagged With: capability, capital investment, customer focus, information technology, interactive voice response

About the Author

James Lawther
James Lawther

James Lawther is a middle-aged, middle manager.

To reach this highly elevated position he has worked in numerous industries, from supermarket retailing to tax collecting.  He has had several operational roles, including running the night shift in a frozen pea packing factory and carrying out operational research for a credit card company.

As you can see from his C.V. he has either a wealth of experience or is incapable of holding down a job.  If the latter is true this post isn’t worth a minute of your attention.

Unfortunately, the only way to find out is to read it and decide for yourself.

www.squawkpoint.com/

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Explore

accountability assumptions beliefs best practice blame bureaucracy capability clarity command and control communication complexity continuous improvement cost saving culture customer focus data is not information decisions employee performance measures empowerment error proofing fessing up gemba human nature incentives information technology innovation key performance indicators learning management style measurement motivation performance management poor service process control purpose reinforcing behaviour service design silo management systems thinking targets teamwork test and learn trust video waste

Receive Posts by e-Mail

Get the next post delivered straight to your inbox

Creative Commons

This information from The Squawk Point is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
Creative Commons Licence
Customer Experience Update

Try This:

  • Fish Bone Diagrams – Helpful or Not?

  • Should You Punish Mistakes?

  • Best-of-Breed

  • Blame or Solutions?

Connect

  • E-mail
  • LinkedIn
  • RSS
  • YouTube
  • Cookies
  • Contact Me

Copyright © 2025 · Enterprise Pro on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in