Originally published July 16, 2009

Telecom is in my blood

When it comes to telecom, I’m more than a little abnormal – it’s in my blood. My dad retired from AT&T Long Lines after 42 years (he had one of those “Ma Bell is a Cheap Mother!” shirts during one of the CWA strikes), and my mother was one of those ladies on roller skates working the cordboards back in the 40s. My first real job was Co-Op Engineer for GTE AE Labs in beautiful Northlake IL – when I told my dad he said something like “Haven’t you been paying attention? All the nights & weekends I had to work? Knowing how to answer the phone at night? I thought you were smarter than that – and not only do you go to work for a phone company, you go to work for THAT phone company!?!?!?!”

He was shattered. I was hooked.

I still don’t have Caller ID on my home phone – partially because I’m too cheap to pay for it & partially because I genuinely enjoy answering the phone completely unawares, sometimes hoping it’s a telemarketer so I can turn the call around, find out where they’re calling from, whose gear they use, whether or not they’re on the payroll or contracted, and then I pitch them. I always volunteer to answer the phone when visiting my family & the display says something like “out of area – undisclosed caller” – but they don’t let me.

I like calling customer service toll-free numbers & playing with the speech reco lady just to see what she can do. Zeroing out just to see if the screenpop worked, and whether or not I actually get connected to *Krissy*. Firing up a chat session while I’m on hold on the speakerphone just to see which one comes up in queue first.

Which brings me around to Get Human . If you run a contact center and you don’t know about Get Human you should. Because chances are if you don’t know about the Get Human standard for customer service, your customers probably feel like Joe Thompson…

It doesn’t have to be this way of course, and your customers won’t get anywhere near the thrill I do from a visit to telecom hell. They might just strap on their skates and disappear. Check out the Get Human standard – like dear old dad said “Haven’t you been paying attention?”

Do you have any questions or comments about this blog? We would love to hear from you! Please send us an email!

Mike Burke

http://www.iq-services.com/
6601 Lyndale Ave South, #330
Minneapolis, MN 55423

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