This is just a bit of silliness that came to me while attempting to refill a prescription this week. I’ve reached the age where I pretty much always have a prescription waiting for me, so I interact with that particular phone menu a lot.

Back during my previous work-life, my boss came to me and said, “I’m thinking of installing an automated phone system on our main number.” I cheerfully responded, “In God’s name why?” I think I also suggested that, if he nurtured a pathological hatred for our public, he should seek therapy. The answer, of course, was that the admin staff fought over whose turn it was to answer the phones and each jealously tracked the number of hours they had to do so up against the number of minutes their co-workers did.

Now, I was fairly senior in leadership, but I believed in pitching in. I offered to answer the phones, if someone would train me on the intimidating, button-studded sidecar that attached to the designated hardware and on the Byzantine maze that was the set of flip cards for finding extensions and outside numbers. I was never trained. Maybe it had something to do with that fact that I consider, “In God’s name why?” a cheerful response.

After I had expostulated for a few minutes on the right way to build a phone menu, my boss nodded and said quietly, “Yeah, let me get back to you.” When I retired seven or eight years later, we did not have a phone menu.

It ain’t easy being my boss.

Automated phone menus fall into the “Because we can” class of technological side-steps. The ability is there, so organizations use it. It does not save time. It does not save money. It raises very close to 100% the chance that the customer, when he finally encounters a human agent, will be boiling mad. It damages the reputation of the organization.

Allegedly, it’s used because the organization can save a receptionist’s salary. In fact, it’s used to discourage people from calling, to limit public contact, and to once again demonstrate that the American government industrial complex holds in almost no esteem the people on whom all the organization’s success depends–the ones who actually talk to customers. Direct customer interaction is considered an “unskilled” job. Which only goes to demonstrate that perhaps the most unskilled job in the landscape is that of executive director.

And, by the way, it doesn’t eliminate the receptionist’s salary. The receptionist is still there, probably carrying a new title on the order of “Officer in Charge of Outreach Infrastructure Innovation.” He just doesn’t answer phones anymore.

But what did I tell my boss lo those many years gone? Someone should know, ’cause, damn, despite my best efforts, organizations still set up automated phone menus. So here goes:

The Rules:

What Should not Precede the Menu:

This is not a newsletter. Don’t make the customer wait to hear the menu options until you have told them what your Covid policy is, what big contract you just landed, or what services you’re not performing that you’re actually still charging your customers to perform. Get to the menu options.

Only you care about your mission statement. Put it on your website and forget about it. Forget about the mission statement, that is. Judging by the utility of your website, you’ve already forgotten about that.

Your menu options have not changed. It’s a lie. As the immortal Joan Collins once noted, “A lie is a terrible way to say hello.” So don’t let’s do it.

We know you have a website. If it worked, trust us, we would not be calling. Spare us the painful recitation of “Double-U, double-U, double-U.”

Yeah, you’re experiencing high call volume. That’s because your website doesn’t work. Don’t remind us.

Our call is not important to you. If it were, you wouldn’t have an automated menu. You’d put us directly through to the most important person in the organization, the trained customer service rep who knows how to find us the help we need.

After the caller has made a selection and (inevitably) been placed on hold… Shut UP!:

Never, ever, have a recorded voice read ads while holding. You’ve already demonstrated to the customer that you do not value their custom. Trying to sell them something now is just crass.

Do not check in with the holding caller every 30 seconds with automated voices, especially to say, “Your call is important to us.” We’ve established it’s a lie, and It makes the caller divert their attention back to the call unnecessarily, interrupting their Killer Sudoku game or the Zoom meeting they’re listening to on mute.  

There is no music that everyone likes. If you must play music, make it very quiet classical. Maybe some of those spa sounds. The generic techno-pop theme you had an online service compose for your company is not designed to be heard for fifteen minutes on endless repeat.  

And never, I don’t care how much you hate your customers because your mommy loved the potted ficus by the sink more than she loved you, never let your automated menu hang up on them. (And the ficus was prettier and understood more math, let’s be honest.)

Here’s a script that, if you hate your customers but want to keep them calm, you are free to adopt. Use these suggestions in order.

Thank your for calling BlahBlah Worldwide

To speak to a human being, press 0

For [your most common service], press 1 (Fill a prescription, file a claim, pay a bill, get an account balance)

To dial an extension, press 2

For a corporate directory, press 3

Less common services are either 4-9 or are on a sub-menu.

Item 9 is a good place to put hours, locations and directions to your office; because people who still make a phone call for such information have nothing but time on their hands. In fact, item 9 should just be routed to the Chief Officer in Charge of Outreach Infrastructure Innovation. Clearly, such a caller needs someone to talk to; and it prevents the COCOII from setting up one more full-day Microsoft Teams meeting.

These rules do not appl to A.I.-driven systems. If you’re going to build one of those, talk to Apple. So far, they’re the only ones who have built one that says much apart from, “I’m sorry. I didn’t understand your response.”