I miss the busy tone I used to hear that told me two things; that you were there at the other end AND you were busy speaking to somebody. Auto ‘Redial’ came in as a great feature because my phone could keep checking with your phone and would call us both right back when they became free. I could do something else meantime, instead of sitting by the phone fidgeting impatiently. But I won’t say that the IVR (Interactive Voice Response) feature was a logical step in the right direction. Firstly the ‘voice’ became impersonal. Second, I could go on and on pressing buttons and finally wait on end — I have waited as long as a half hour before I hung up in sheer frustration on an airline’s ‘customer care’ line at LAX — I could hear spurts of lo-fidelity digital music randomly interspersed with,
“Your call is important to us … All our agents are busy at the moment … [silence] … Somebody will be with you shortly … [music] … [silence] …” looped a gazillion times.
You ask me why I stood by the booth with the handset to my ear for a full 25-odd minutes.
Well, tell me, what were my choices?
My only fault was that I apparently believed their claim that my call was important to them. No doubt there’s great merit in technological progress, but the way it is applied today leaves me wondering if technology has overtaken our lives. Continue reading ““Your call is important to us …””