(MUFFLED AND MUMBLED) “Wa. . . . Mih . . . . . Uni…sity” (PAUSE) Hello? (SOFTLY AS IF THROUGH A DOOR AND A GLASS OF WATER) “Yes?” I can’t hear you . . . (STILL SOFTLY AND CLIPPED) “West . . . Mich . . . University.” Oh, is this Western Michigan University? (LOUDER, BUT STILL SOFTLY AND MUFFLED). “Yes,” I can’t hear you. (LOUD AND CLEAR NOW) “Western Michigan University, how can I help you?”
Okay. Thank you. Now I can hear you. . .Yes, can you connect me to . . .?
This is not a script from WMU’s latest student performance in Dalton. Believe it or not, it’s the real thing that might be experienced by calling the University’s main number, 269-387-1000. And like a real Coke-a-Cola, it’s cold and not always refreshing.
Not so suave for a “top-tier research institution.” Not a great first impression for a school with one of the better theater schools in the country. Doesn’t really fly as the place for one of the premier flight schools in the country.
Regardless of how polite and efficient these live operators are at getting a caller where one’s going once one can hear that one’s connected to the university and can ask for help, the non-audible responses ground out the warmth of a welcome to that first-time caller.
And that is a problem, according to business expert Lydia Ramsey at Sideroad.com, who cites an International Research Institute study of reasons individuals give for becoming a “non-repeat” customer. Among the reasons, a whopping 68 percent said because of an attitude of indifference.
Ramsey poses the possibility that indifference can be communicated by phone. She said, “Very often the telephone is the first and only contact that people have with your organization.
Make sure that this experience is the best you and your employees have to offer so that first-time callers become repeat customers.”
The Internet is another, newer, first-stop for many. As Rick Gershon, Ph.D., professor of telecommunications at WMU said, “Clearly if you experience a problem, it’s absolutely a problem. It’s like going to the website and you can’t call it up.” He added, “Dead space does not serve the customer well.”
Most University people—faculty, staff, and students—are unaffected and unaware. More often they use University directories to call from extension to extension directly, and they are oblivious of the consistently inconsistent problem of not being able to hear the switchboard operator of the University’s enormous PBX system, of which the operator’s line is the centerpiece.
Could a frustrating inability to be heard render a potential new student to never call back? Likewise a prospective students’ parents? A trustee? An alumnus/alumna? Someone who needs some assistance or information from or about the University? Even with a pleasant attitude, if the call isn’t “connected,” what’s the result?
It may be a dance of frustration and the song can’t really be heard, but the tune hasn’t changed for some time. The caller is tempted to break out, “I’d like to teach the operator to project and make herself heard . . . (Recall the 1960’s jingle for Coke-Cola “I’d like to teach the World to sing.”)
“If it’s the first time you contact a place, then that’s the impression you get,” agreed Satish Defhpande, Ph.D, professor of management in the Hayworth College of Business at WMU, adding, “it may not be a very good impression.”
Defhpande checked it out for himself and added that his connection “sounded muffled, like a speaker phone or like talking to someone from another country.” He would know. He talks regularly to his mother in India. Talking on the phone to “Western was not as clear,” he said, as his real life international calls to mom.
Although Gershon has not experienced this inaudible connection, he says, “without checking the lines, it sounds as though it could be a software glitch in routing the call.”
Of the three live operators who may answer the switchboard line (Monday through Friday, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.), one of them said, “It takes a couple of seconds to connect.”
While they are not permitted to give out their names, another operator was asked why she didn’t wait the couple of seconds for the connection to come out of muffle into the clear, she explained, “Only sometimes it takes a couple of seconds, some calls not. We just have to say over and over again ‘Western Michigan University. How may I help you?’ till the person can hear.” She added that although the issue of not being heard occurs “sometimes, it’s not very often.”
Why wouldn’t the University do something if it’s aware of the issue?
Jim Gilcrest, Chief Information Officer for WMU, said, “that’s standard operating procedure for any operator to repeat.” But the problem, he said is not with WMU. “Our testing doesn’t support what you experienced,” adding that in the testing, “we haven’t been able to duplicate that problem.” The University has tested lines, verified there’s no problem with the operators’ headsets, he said, adding, “if we can’t duplicate, then we can’t identify the problem.” The University’s tests have included numerous locations on and off campus. He said, “We have found greater problems with cell phones across the board.”
For our sampling, the main switchboard number was called during a two week period via land lines, cordless hand-sets tied to land lines, and cell phones. The latter of which produced an immediately clear reception as if in person! And Defhpande called from his office on the very same PBX system as the operator and had the muffled, barely audible experience. Chances are it is not the caller’s phone, cell or otherwise.
So what’s the problem?
Gershon’s hunch about a glitch seems to be the culprit. Even though the University has tried but can’t get the problem we’ve experienced to happen, there are changes in telecommunications that Gilcrest attributes to the problem. “We don’t really know how calls will be routed.” Calls today from cell phones or land lanes go through “between dozens or possibly hundreds of switches. It’s far more complicated than people think.” For example, he explained, two people could sit in the same house near campus, each on a cell or land line and call the University. One person’s call could go through Chicago, another’s half way across the country.
“While voiceover Internet phones for Charter and Comcast experience more problems here and everywhere,” Gilcrest said, often acting like long-distance calls in the routes they take even though the customer is not charged that way. Today consumers accept that cell phones “drop calls,” and sometimes even “cross lines” like in the old “party line” hard-wire phones in the ‘50s and ‘60s and hear another caller on their line.
Apparently with cell phones in the mix, there are just too many users trying to access the system at once. What is a a huge, modern-day problem just happens to show up on WMU’s switchboard. Either customers will just take it as the way it is . . . or go elsewhere. Maybe — and only then — when enough businesses believe they’ve irritated enough potential and ongoing customers, they’ll get together with one another to figure out how to fix this problem.
Until then, as Lily Tomlin, a comedian renown for her operator character, might have said, “Hello. This is the operator. Let’s just see if this works.”
What were we supposed to have gained from this article. How is this an editorial when its just a rant backed up with research. But, as John Stossel, well known journalist for his work on 20/20 said 100’s of times, “give me a break.”