"We're Experiencing an Unusually High Level of Calls." Yeah. Right.

I've been encountering a wrinkle when I call for service. Just after the recording telling me that my call may be recorded for quality purposes is another message that the company is experiencing a high volume of calls and that if I don't want to wait, I should call back another time.

I first heard it calling a pet ID chip service, where the recording went on to say that the staff had a lot of lost pets to reunite with owners. So I felt guilty for calling for something as trivial as registering a pet who wasn't (yet) lost. Then I got that same type of recording last week, when calling an appliance repair service. That time, after I elected to wait, the phone system disconnected me.

On the face of it, it seems like a good thing. You don't make the customer wait unnecessarily. You're giving her some information to allow her to make the choice to stay on hold. But in practice, it doesn't feel all that customer-centric.

For the pet ID chip company, I called on different days and at different times, and I always got the recording. But at least, the company did give you the option of leaving a message (which took two days for the company to return). For the appliance repair, I didn't appreciate getting cut off. And there wasn't a message option.

Neither of them suggested a less high-volume time to call. Which, of course, leads me to think the recording is always on. Heck, this is no unusual level of calls. It's probably a steady thing. They probably don't staff enough is my guess.

Recordings like these strike me as attempts by companies to appear customer-centric while really masking a "we don't care about you" attitude. When I "fell off" the appliance repair's hold, it reminded me of ages ago, when I worked in a newspaper circulation department—the folks you report your missed paper to. On days when we were short-staffed and the calls were coming in thick and thin, people (not I!) would just disconnect everyone. Without any other information to go on, that's what I figure the CSRs at the appliance repair place did to me. My suspicion didn't change any when I finally got a live operator and she hung up on me when I asked for information about the company. This was not a customer-centric contact center.

I do think there's a way for companies to manage the ebb and flow of calls and give honest information to customers.

My doctor's office does this another way, the right way. When you enter my doctor's IVR system to schedule an appointment, the system tells you how many calls are ahead of you. Now, that's a useful piece of information. It's current. And it gives me a real way to determine if now is a good time to hold and wait or I should call back later.

Does your company use IVR recordings? Are you doing it for your customers or for you? Do you honestly change recordings to reflect the real-time situation? Or do you use them to scare away customers?