I am the recipient of unsubscribe requests where I work (people asking to be taken off our email lists). At the bottom of every mass email we send out, there are directions for people to take themselves off our lists. Sometimes that works.
Sometimes it doesn't.
That makes lil' old me the object of peoples' ire.
For example, if their specific email address they use NOW is not on our list, the auto-unsubscribe option does not work. So sometimes I get rather angry sounding emails with people using all caps and many exclamation marks. My office mate / buddy S suggests that people have gotten so used to machines being the 'person' who receives their unsubscribe emails that they do not realize that I am a real person who doesn't much appreciate rudeness and anger.
More and more industries are automating, for the sake of cost-effectiveness and not needing to pay a human being for the job a machine could do. But is this really a good idea when customer satisfaction is on the line?
I went to CVS Saturday morning - I was feeling under the weather and purchasing Odwalla Strawberry-C Monster and Day-Quil. This was pre-coffee, keep in mind. I go to check out and there are no humans at the human check out desk, so I go to the self-checkout area. Again, I did this before having any coffee. The first prompt always asks if you prefer the machine to talk in English and Spanish. This intelligent yet uncaffienated blonde pressed 'Espanol' because it started with the letter E.
It would have been ok, except in order to complete a transaction when buying Day-Quil, the purchaser must ask one of the CVS employees to press a button saying that they have seen your ID and that you are indeed over 18. Thank goodness I had seen a couple of dudes need to do the same thing before me for THEIR cold medicine.
Is this really a good idea for CVS? They require ID for a whole slew of cold and allergy medicines. Perhaps they should just have a sign in that section telling those suffering from disease to make sure to check out with a human in order to avoid the delays within the machinery. Especially if they have not yet had their coffee and do not understand Spanish.
I am also not a fan of the voice-activated phone calls. When you're trying to talk to someone about your airline reservation or health insurance, and you have a difficult to understand last name, what is the point of having to enunciate into the mouthpiece when you just have to re-spell and confirm your identity once they finally connect you to a human. You can't even press zero and be done with it anymore, you still have to give information before you can be connected.
Back to self checkout.
When it was first introduced, I was at a Shaw's attempting to buy, among other things, potatoes.
Things went all right in the beginning. Then came those darn potatoes.
I scanned the potatoes, then placed them in the bagging area. The exchange went as follows:
Machine: Unexpected item in bagging area. Please remove this item before continuing.
Clare removes potatoes from bagging area.
Machine: Item missing from bagging area. Please replace item before you proceed.
Clare puts potatoes back.
Machine: Unexpected item in bagging area. Please remove this item before continuing.
Clare removes potatoes from bagging area.
Machine: Item missing from bagging area. Please replace item before you proceed.
Clare puts potatoes back.
Machine: Unexpected item in bagging area. Please remove this item before continuing.
Clare removes potatoes from bagging area.
Machine: Item missing from bagging area. Please replace item before you proceed.
Clare puts potatoes back.
And so on and so forth, until an employee so kindly comes along and enters some password and allows me to continue, even though the potatoes are still in the bagging area. I felt like I was on candid camera and they wanted to see how long it would take before I blew up or asked for help or just left Shaw's in disgust.
Machines can make cars. Computer programs can check for mistakes. Self-checkout at stores can hasten the process during high volume times. But please, I beg of you, corporations - do not completely replace humans. If for no other reason than the fact that many of us are on machines 8 hours per day and need that face-to-face or voice-to-voice human contact.
Sometimes it doesn't.
That makes lil' old me the object of peoples' ire.
For example, if their specific email address they use NOW is not on our list, the auto-unsubscribe option does not work. So sometimes I get rather angry sounding emails with people using all caps and many exclamation marks. My office mate / buddy S suggests that people have gotten so used to machines being the 'person' who receives their unsubscribe emails that they do not realize that I am a real person who doesn't much appreciate rudeness and anger.
More and more industries are automating, for the sake of cost-effectiveness and not needing to pay a human being for the job a machine could do. But is this really a good idea when customer satisfaction is on the line?
I went to CVS Saturday morning - I was feeling under the weather and purchasing Odwalla Strawberry-C Monster and Day-Quil. This was pre-coffee, keep in mind. I go to check out and there are no humans at the human check out desk, so I go to the self-checkout area. Again, I did this before having any coffee. The first prompt always asks if you prefer the machine to talk in English and Spanish. This intelligent yet uncaffienated blonde pressed 'Espanol' because it started with the letter E.
It would have been ok, except in order to complete a transaction when buying Day-Quil, the purchaser must ask one of the CVS employees to press a button saying that they have seen your ID and that you are indeed over 18. Thank goodness I had seen a couple of dudes need to do the same thing before me for THEIR cold medicine.
Is this really a good idea for CVS? They require ID for a whole slew of cold and allergy medicines. Perhaps they should just have a sign in that section telling those suffering from disease to make sure to check out with a human in order to avoid the delays within the machinery. Especially if they have not yet had their coffee and do not understand Spanish.
I am also not a fan of the voice-activated phone calls. When you're trying to talk to someone about your airline reservation or health insurance, and you have a difficult to understand last name, what is the point of having to enunciate into the mouthpiece when you just have to re-spell and confirm your identity once they finally connect you to a human. You can't even press zero and be done with it anymore, you still have to give information before you can be connected.
Back to self checkout.
When it was first introduced, I was at a Shaw's attempting to buy, among other things, potatoes.
Things went all right in the beginning. Then came those darn potatoes.
I scanned the potatoes, then placed them in the bagging area. The exchange went as follows:
Machine: Unexpected item in bagging area. Please remove this item before continuing.
Clare removes potatoes from bagging area.
Machine: Item missing from bagging area. Please replace item before you proceed.
Clare puts potatoes back.
Machine: Unexpected item in bagging area. Please remove this item before continuing.
Clare removes potatoes from bagging area.
Machine: Item missing from bagging area. Please replace item before you proceed.
Clare puts potatoes back.
Machine: Unexpected item in bagging area. Please remove this item before continuing.
Clare removes potatoes from bagging area.
Machine: Item missing from bagging area. Please replace item before you proceed.
Clare puts potatoes back.
And so on and so forth, until an employee so kindly comes along and enters some password and allows me to continue, even though the potatoes are still in the bagging area. I felt like I was on candid camera and they wanted to see how long it would take before I blew up or asked for help or just left Shaw's in disgust.
Machines can make cars. Computer programs can check for mistakes. Self-checkout at stores can hasten the process during high volume times. But please, I beg of you, corporations - do not completely replace humans. If for no other reason than the fact that many of us are on machines 8 hours per day and need that face-to-face or voice-to-voice human contact.
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