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From: rick@beowulf.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Re: Microsoft's "customer support"
Message-ID: <2910@sdcsvax.UCSD.EDU>
Date: Fri, 27-Mar-87 00:07:17 EST
Article-I.D.: sdcsvax.2910
Posted: Fri Mar 27 00:07:17 1987
Date-Received: Sat, 28-Mar-87 11:54:51 EST
References: <502@hadron.UUCP> <620@pilchuck.Data-IO.COM>
Sender: nobody@sdcsvax.UCSD.EDU
Reply-To: rick@beowulf.UUCP (Rick Randall)
Organization: EE/CS Dept. U.C. San Diego
Lines: 27
Summary: I don't think it's all bad

In article <620@pilchuck.Data-IO.COM> rice@pilchuck.UUCP (Ken Rice) writes:
...
>The last time I called, I hit an extremely annoying automated telephone-
>answering system. I had to work through about six levels of a tree-structured
>sequence, pushing keys on my phone to select branches to reach the C experts.
>When I finally thought I'd found the lowest level, I got a message that they'd
>all be in a meeting and to call back in two hours. I was so mad I just about
>drove over to Microsoft to chuck my question through a window tied to a rock.
...
I appreciate your frustration, but actually I prefer this "phone-menu"
approach to getting put on hold indefinitely -- or worse cut off after
being on hold indefinitely -- while a set of receptionists try to route
my call.  I suppose it saves time and money too, and you get as close to
the person you want to talk to before any human intervention (but your
own) is called for.  If the tree is well-designed, it sounds like
reasonably intelligent automation...  Also, consider that if you want to
call the same desk multiple times, the sequence can go very fast after
the first time (assuming you write down and save the numbers) -- if the
system works like the one at Orchid, you don't have to wait to hear the
recording at each node of the tree.

	Rick Randall    EECS Department 
			University of California, San Diego
			
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