I found this very interesting.
https://www.gethuman.com

As one who administers a PBX with an auto-attendant I am very sensitive to the needs of our customers. NO ONE gets stuck in voicemail jail or multiple tiers on the AA. The caller can always dial 0 and get an operator during the day or a security guard at night.

Richard

Gethuman Standards
These standards have been designed with simplicity and directness as to eliminate ambiguity and enable testing and certification. There may be more than one way to accomplish each, but the result must be as follows:
1. The caller must always be able to dial 0 or to say "operator" to queue for a human.
2. An accurate estimated wait-time, based on call traffic statistics at the time of the call, should always be given when the caller arrives in the queue. A revised update should be provided periodically during hold time.
3. Callers should never be asked to repeat any information (name, full account number, description of issue, etc.) provided to a human or an automated system during a call.
4. When a human is not available, callers should be offered the option to be called back. If 24 hour service is not available, the caller should be able to leave a message, including a request for a call back the following business day. Gold Standard: Call back the caller at a time that they have specified.
5. Speech applications should provide touch-tone (DTMF) fall-back.
6. Callers should not be forced to listen to long/verbose prompts.
7. Callers should be able to interrupt prompts (via dial-through for DTMF applications and/or via barge-in for speech applications) whenever doing so will enable the user to complete his task more efficiently.
8. Do not disconnect for user errors, including when there are no perceived key presses (as the caller might be on a rotary phone); instead queue for a human operator and/or offer the choice for call-back.
9. Default language should be based on consumer demographics for each organization. Primary language should be assumed with the option for the caller to change language. (i.e. English should generally be assumed for the US, with a specified key for Spanish.) Gold Standard: Remember the caller's language preference for future calls. Gold Standard: Organizations should ideally support separate toll-free numbers for each individual language.
10. All operators/representatives of the organization should be able to communicate clearly with the caller (i.e. accents should not hinder communication; representatives should have excellent diction and ennunciation.)

Gethuman Gold Standards
1. While holding, allow callers to disable hold music; remember their selection for future calls.
2. If ads or promotions are played, allow users to disable them.
3. Allow callers, where appropriate, to identify themselves via caller ID and a securely defined PIN, instead of being required to enter long account numbers each call.
4. Default to preferred language based on caller ID.
5. Support and publicize individual toll-free numbers for individual languages.
6. Allow callers to access audio transcriptions of their calls via the organization's website.
7. Call back the caller at the time that he/she specified.
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Anyone adhering to all these standards?

We are ok except for number 2 (and some might argue number 10 as it's hard to find someone in Mississippi without an accent).

As for the Gold Standards... ehhhh, no. Does anyone give callers the ability to disable MOH? That's wild.

Richard

Disable music on hold? I have a few customers that don't use MOH, and every single caller they get will complain about being on hold for 10 minutes when in reality it was only 20 or 30 seconds. Dead air on the other end of the phone drives most people crazy-they're absolutely certain they've been cutoff. No matter how well you configure an auto attendant, some callers will complain, and most of the time, their complaints are a reflection of how well the company in question handles a call when it reaches someones's desk. I'm not a fan of auto attendants, but I install them with the caller in mind- nobody likes being hung out on a line...

Agreed. If our XM Radio goes off-line the callers start complaining that they were cut-off. Without a display phone, sometimes it's hard to tell if you're still connected.

XM radio for MOH...I thought using that for that purpose is a no-no..?

Really? Anyone kelse now about this? Ours is a commercial account, so I thought it was ok. Maybe I should contact XM....

It's fine.

I know alot of people who use Sirius or XM commercial accoutns for music on hold and overhead music.

IU'm not sure about XM but we install Sirius Business accounts and the business class subscription allows you to play it as MOH and overhead.

Just this past week I got the "I was on hold for 15 minutes". I check the ACD reports. LWC was 3:46. If I had the money to buy what I needed to support the above guidelines I would be a happy phone guy.

To me this is the "Prime Directive" for voicemail systems. I hate calling someplace and not having this option. It always seem like those places that do not use it have the zero-out feature turned off. We point ours back to the main switchboard as default.

The sad thing is "the phone system" always get blamed for voice mail jail. It's all about proper programming.
Common sense should tell you to always have a 0 out option (and to actually use 0). Common sense should tell you to limit the number of levels that the customer has to navigate to get a person. With one exception all my auto attendants have one tier.

Richard

Alot of my customers build HUGE multi-tiered menus trying to give the caller every possible option for info. Too many times I just shake my head & say, "what if YOU were calling in here?"
The customer is usually adament about getting this set up. Also, too many times they insist I turn off the "0" option so as to "force" the caller to "use" the menu options to "find" their info that they are calling about.

:bang:

That's it. If you present that question and they don't see the wisdom of it, then trying to argue further is indeed, as the emoticon suggests, banging your head against a wall. It's what radio talk show host Clark Howard calls Customer No-Service.

Richard

There's also a point for providing better customer service through call centers and voicemail.

Suppose the point is to give callers the option of either leaving a message for a callback or going into a queue. If the caller can Zero Out, and they all do, then a receptionist has to manually transfer them right back into the queue or to the voicemail box that they would have reached anyway if they hadn't gone Neo-Luddite at the first Electric-Lady voice.

Then they're even more pissed off, because they've been to the queue once, the receptionist once, and the Auto-attendant twice. In the end, the customer has to decide what's acceptable or unacceptable as far as VM layers, queue interflow times, and Zeroing out. As I sometimes tell customers, "I can only advise. I don't make admin decisions."