Confirmation. It’s Endless.
This morning on the phone with my insurance provider:
“Please enter your account number”
“123456789″ “#”
“You entered 123456789. Is this correct?”
If it’s incorrect, I can see that it’s wrong (most phones display the numbers you’re pressing). Alternatively, I just know that it’s wrong because my motor control has evolved for thousands of years to easily interact with things about the size of my fingertip, and I can directly observe the results of my actions.
If it really is incorrect, chances are people don’t pay attention to this message anyway, similar to the ubiquitous confirmation dialog. In either case, you’re going to have to sort through it with customer service.
10000 calls a day into customer service, with an extra 4 seconds for confirmation, assuming you get the confirmation press right and don’t mistakenly re-enter their number “just to be sure”. You are funding an additional 11 hours a day in the off chance that this message will succeed and the re-entry will happen online instead of via a CSR.
More $ and wasted customer time.
Now, I could be completely wrong here. Call centers have metrics out the wahzoo and I’d be surprised if they didn’t have the numbers to back up the assertion that the additional 11 hours a day they’re spending in 800 funding is less than the cost of “wasted” CSR time.
Doesn’t seem to pass the sniff test though.