The gethuman standard is a specification
for how customer service phone systems
and support should work.
The gethuman
standard will improve the phone systems of any
organization that complies, making the customer service
experience for consumers easier, more effective and more
efficient.
The gethuman standard was used to grade
each of the companies in the gethuman
database.
gethuman standard 1.0
The gethuman
standards have been designed with
simplicity and directness as to
eliminate ambiguity and enable testing
and certification. There may be more
than one way to accomplish each, but the
result must be as follows:
The
caller must always be able to dial 0
or to say "operator" to queue for a
human.
An
accurate estimated wait-time, based
on call traffic statistics at the
time of the call, should always be
given when the caller arrives in the
queue. A revised update should be
provided periodically during hold
time.
Callers
should never be asked to repeat any
information (name, full account
number, description of issue, etc.)
provided to a human or an automated
system during a call.
When a
human is not available, callers
should be offered the option to be
called back. If 24 hour service is
not available, the caller should be
able to leave a message, including a
request for a call back the
following business day. Gold
Standard: Call back the caller at a
time that they have specified.
Speech
applications should provide
touch-tone (DTMF) fall-back.
Callers
should not be forced to listen to
long/verbose prompts.
Callers
should be able to interrupt prompts
(via dial-through for DTMF
applications and/or via barge-in for
speech applications) whenever doing
so will enable the user to complete
his task more efficiently.
Do not
disconnect for user errors,
including when there are no
perceived key presses (as the caller
might be on a rotary phone); instead
queue for a human operator and/or
offer the choice for call-back.
Default
language should be based on consumer
demographics for each organization.
Primary language should be assumed
with the option for the caller to
change language. (i.e. English
should generally be assumed for the
US, with a specified key for
Spanish.) Gold Standard: Remember
the caller's language preference for
future calls. Gold Standard:
Organizations should ideally support
separate toll-free numbers for each
individual language.
All
operators/representatives of the
organization should be able to
communicate clearly with the caller
(i.e. accents should not hinder
communication; representatives
should have excellent diction and
enunciation.)
methodology
Based on anecdotal
information submitted via thousands of emails, and input
from consumers on the
gethuman discussion board, as well the extensive
experience of the
gethuman team, a core set of
standards was defined. After over a month of additional
review and feedback from our users (including results
from a ranking survey), the standards were revised and
finalized as stated below.
For information on how to improve your
customer service phone systems, click
here.
core principles
Throughout the
development process for the
gethuman standard, several core
principles continually surfaced. It
is essential that compliant
organizations embrace these
principles and build on them to best
achieve the Standards. Core
principles include:
Humans
first - In cases where a
human is available, a human
should quickly answer the call
and determine the caller's need.
If appropriate, the human can
offer a self-service option to
accomplish tasks and thereby
merely act as a natural language
interface to the system's Main
Menu. Callers who prefer to use
automation will elect to do so.
Those requiring or otherwise
preferring human assistance will
have it.
Make it
easy - The system should be
so easy, convenient and
efficient to use that people
will willingly choose to use it.
Such systems should permit the
user to accomplish tasks faster
than by interaction with a
human.
Efficient
prompts - No prompt content
should be included unless it
improves efficiency of task
completion for the user.
"Legalese" should not be
included unless it is absolutely
required by law. Cliché phrases,
which have become meaningless to
consumers due to overuse and
lack of trust of phone systems,
should be avoided. Examples
include: "Your call is important
to us." "Please listen
carefully, as our menu options
have changed." "You can access
our website to answer most
questions."
Systems
are not humans - Automated
systems that try to sound human
can be patronizing to consumers.
When a consumer calls with a
serious issue, they do not want
to be greeted by overly friendly
and cheery personas. Avoid using
personas such as these that will
annoy callers.
Listen to
your customers - Regularly
survey users on call quality.
Respond to frequently heard
complaints in a public, visible
forum, indicating what you are
changing to address the
frustration. Organizations
should use this data to trend
improvement over time, to bonus
call center executives, to
impact support representatives'
compensation and training, and
to benchmark against the
industry.
Logical
flow - Self-service
applications should have logical
flow. For example, it is
unacceptable to obtain a
caller's account number, and
then ask if he/she would like to
open an account.
gethuman standards testing
Where practical, we will test for
compliance with the gethuman
standard regularly, and results will
be published on gethuman.com. For
each standard, organizations will
receive a 0 (not compliant) or a
1 (compliant). Overall ratings will
reflect an average of standard
scores. For some detail scores as
well as an analysis of the problems
and recommendations for fixing them,
go to
Repairs for Wrecks.
certification process
In
order to be certified as
gethuman-compliant, organizations
must adhere to the gethuman
standard. For additional
information please
contact us.
contact us
If you have
questions regarding gethuman.com or
the gethuman standard, please
contact us.
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