
IVR Hell
I can just imagine the IVR system on top of the CRM system for this:
....
Step 37: "Please confirm your original requirement from one of the following 9 selections."
Salesforce is adding new "intelligent" software to its CRM system that hunts down the right sales or support staffer for a particular task no matter where they are. "The Service Cloud Intelligence Engine harnesses the power of data science to improve workflows, business processes and deliver seamless customer service across …
After a day of not answering the phone or accepting video calls, the system, hopefully, will send you no more calls. You'll just have to change your id to 'all agents busy' so that getting '0' calls is perfect.
Also, " so that is a particular support staff is " should be "so that if...". I bet if you incorporated a wiki-style editing system, changes would be easier to flag and correct.
Revealing age here - has anyone heard of the "Peter Principle?" A corollary states that work flows to a competent person until he is overwhelmed and becomes incompetent. See: "The software, due out later this year, routes sales and support work to the agent best capable of handling the job, for example routing certain high-value customers or those with specific technical needs to the right staff."
This will make the "... agent best capable" eligible for promotion to management and a continuing, lasting career of frenzied incompetence until taking early retirement for health reasons and to raise vicunas in a delightfully rural cow pasture. Whee!
> the intelligence will be added on as a paid-for upgrade
Please can we (the callers) have this, too?
Most of the time calling the "support" desk is a screening process to weed out those callers who aren't absolutely desperate to get help, assistance or support. The trial-by-patience means that while you are on hold you will either be flipping through the (badly worded, inaccurate and out-of-date) instruction manual, or searching out solutions on the web, or scanning through Amazon for an alternative product that will have different and hopefully not show-stopping faults. If you succeed in finding a fix of your own, then you ring-off before you get connected to the (non-flying) drone who's only suggestion, after taking all your personal details for the Nth time. is to "turn it off and on again".
If only there was a way of getting through to the "right sales or support staffer for a particular task no matter where they are". Something along the lines of "Press 1 if you're an idiot. Press 2 if you've already turned it off and on again. Press 3 if you think there's a race condition in the interrupt routine. Press 4 if you're prepared to pay £10 to get in front of the other 23 people in the queue and talk to our 1 single qualified techy RIGHT NOW".
Workload management softer refines these data flows
There is nothing more satisfying than softening up the salespeople in the early morning through workflow management. It's like being on the business end of a rolling 155mm howitzer barrage. And then the M1A1s come.