musings

Years ago, the British telephone organisation (now BT, but formerly the General Post Office or GPO) got into trouble when its bean counters decreed that operators should not end the call with a thank you or goodbye, because that took time, and time is money. There was a public outcry at this hard-nosed attitude to manners, and the decision was reversed.

Now we have BT Answer the free automated call answering service. There is nobody really there of course, but the system talks to us using a recorded woman’s voice. She tells us if we have no messages, or if we do have messages, she introduces each one and afterwards presents us with options to delete, listen again, save or return the call. All very clever, but so commonplace that we don’t give this sort of thing a moment’s thought any longer. And with familiarity comes … impatience.

I have become impatient with the pointless repetitious wordiness of the recorded messages and the strange, slightly urgent (or is it scolding?) tone in which they are delivered. This is what you hear if there are no messages:

Welcome to BT Answer. You’ve no messages. Thank you for calling BT Answer. Goodbye.

When the words of politeness greatly outnumber the essential words of the message, I think it is time to do some pruning.
If you do have messages, it gets worse.

Welcome to BT Answer. You’ve one new message. First new message. Message received today at three forty-five pm. [message plays] To return the call, using BT, press 0. To listen to the message again press 1. To save it, press 2. To delete, press 3. There is a charge for Call Return.

Too many messages! The rising cadence of “To return the call …” makes it sound more like a Boeing cockpit warning: “Pull up! Pull up!” and the final sentence is gabbled like the legal stuff companies have to give at the end of radio adverts: “your home is at risk if you do not keep up repayments always check your flies after going to the lavatory terms and conditions apply.” Of course they are really hoping you have already pressed 0 and made their cash register go ka-ching! before reaching the warning. Did you know it costs 7.5p?

In Spain, Telefonica have a similar service. Theirs is superior in that it automatically starts a few seconds after picking up the phone (ie without dialling 1571), the instructions are business-like but relaxed - and she doesn’t say mensaje mensaje mensaje!

This entry was posted on Sunday, June 15th, 2008 at 3:27 pm and is filed under pedantry. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.