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Previous: Safeco Field garage sign | Main | Next: Perkins menu
September 21, 2005 12:07 AM
Broken: Bank phone message
Rick Segal writes:
On recordings for credit card companies automatic services, they say: "Please enter your 16-digit account number followed by the pound key."
They are a bank! What, they can't count? What's with the pound key? I press 16 digits, I'm done and if they are counting, they know I'm done, so move on. That's broken.
Suppose you accidentally enter one digit twice and don't notice. With the pound key it rejects it immediately and tells you to try again. Counting digits, it attempts to use the wrong account number. There are probably other checks (this can't catch transposition), but it's a quick way to reject invalid entries.
Even if it was useless, it's only a simple thumb movement. Like, 2 inches tops. It's not like it makes you do it twice then hit pound for every three in your number.
and them you get a person on the phone whose first quesion is, "What's your account number?" after having to enter it in order to talk to them.
Also broken, having to enter an email address to post here when I don't want to get email and when it doesn't matter what address you enter.
I think josh has it right: it's a quick validation that you did actually press as many digits as you thought you did.
(Note that as well as the "too many digits" error, it also catches the case where you omit a digit -- a case which would otherwise have to be handled by a timeout. Better to tell the customer immediately that they've made a mistake than to go quiet for a while and then tell them.)
i dont really see how this is broken
maybe a slight inconvienience to people that are too lazy to move their thumb a couple of inches
but not broken
It's broken in the minds of people who enter (or believe they entered) 16 digits, in other words, everyone. And it makes the bank appear silly. The real fix is to have the program wait a few seconds after the last digit entered (except when it's the sixteenth) and then announce that it can't recognize the number. This was designed by a hypercautious programmer, or a rookie, and effectively irritates every phone customer in order to appease the anxieties of the programmer. Wouldn't happen in my shop.
Not broken -- nitpicking poster. Bank VRUs have so many other usability problems that could have been called out. This feature actually helps most users.
"Broken" is harsh, but using the # key is redundant and unnecessary. A phone IVR is not like a computer; it does not need an "Enter" key.
View other thin apps that do not use #:
- entering PIN in bank ATM
- entering phone # when calling phone company
Quanta, both your examples are much shorter and likely used more often than a 16-digit account number, which means there's far less chance of a user forgetting or making an entry error.
Dan, your proposed 'fix' strikes me as being MORE irritating than the original design. If I pause to check the last four digits before entering them, I get an error message and have to start over? Come on. The way it is now is fine, judging by the majority of comments it clearly isn't 'broken in the minds of...everyone.'
My bank asks you to enter your account number and then hit the pound key, however once you have entered the correct number of digits it procedes without waiting for you to hit the pound key.
I presume that the instruction to hit the pound key is for people who skip a digit or for some reason have a shorter account number.
Wow, definatly not broken. The only alernative is to time it and assume the user has finished typing, and as Amro says, that is far more inconvienient. I don't like being pressured to type my number in fast, I want to check each to make sure I don't screw it up.
Timing it would definatly be far more broken. Not only does the quick typer have to sit and wait, but the slow one is forced to rush themselves to input it in time.
The phone, as an input device is not very good. Typing in a 16 digit number affords a lot of opportunity to make mistakes. This includes typing to few or tooo many digits. Using a digit count to determine when input is complete means that you've assumed that the user of the IVR will not make a mistake in typing the number of digits. The technique of using a timer to detect this introduces the additional problem either a long timeout to accommodate slow typing (introducing annoying waits), or a short timeout (locking out slow typists). The fact is, the phone is just not very well suited as an input device for these tasks. Given this, using the # key to signal the end of a long string of digits is a decent solution to the problem.
I am not well-versed in IVR software packages. It may well be that the IVR software has a generic "field" entry capability that uses # as the marker to signal the end of input.
The problem is that the phone software is too general. It was designed for you to enter your N digit number, then press the # key. But in the case of your bank, it happens to always be 16. This problem is systemic to using uncustomized off the shelf stuff for more specific applications.
Chris, you're on the money. As Alan said, "you get a person on the phone whose first quesion is, 'What's your account number?' after having to enter it in order to talk to them." That's one of the stupidest things ever. I think the next time I call my bank, utility companies, or anybody else that performs such stupidity, that I will call them on it when they answer.
Most of the Bank of America ATMs I've used actually do require you to press Enter after entering your PIN. I've never quite understood the reasoning behind that one.
"I think the next time I call my bank, utility companies, or anybody else that performs such stupidity, that I will call them on it when they answer."
I certainly hope you don't mean you're going to insist on an explanation from the customer service rep, who almost certainly did not design the system and finds it as frustrating as you do.
One nice way to quickly get through the menus... use this site: https://www.quickbase.com/db/bam6rdiey?a=q&qid=5
---QUOTE:---
Most of the Bank of America ATMs I've used actually do require you to press Enter after entering your PIN. I've never quite understood the reasoning behind that one.
------------
The reasoning for this is that it is possible to create a PIN number longer than 4 digits at some banks, and since most ATM's will accept other bank's accounts (for a fee), they have to be set up to deal with PIN's of different lengths.
Now here's a question for you: Why does everyone call it a PIN Number (aka Personal Identification Number Number)... stupid and redundant.
Ahhh, i've heard it either way. If you dunno or forget what PIN stands for, they tell you it's a number. It's redundant, but redundancy is often helpful.
I agree, this is broken. On many systems, American Express for example, if you don't hit # it asks you to re-enter the code. At the very least it should read it back to you and ask you to press 1 or # to continue.
On that note, nothing is worse than CitiBank automated accounts. They have account numbers like 3C4 - 123456. Now, in my mind, this is a 9 digit account number... And of course on the phone you can't enter C so you enter 23. When you call in they ask you to enter your 10 digit account number.
What? 10 digits! Oh crap... It took me a full 10 minutes to figure out that its "10" when you substitute for the letter.
ShittyBank is way broken.
Not broken at all. If it wasn't there you'd be saying "stupid bank, they let me enter the wrong number, I should have to hit the # sign".
Think of it like this, lets say you are entering it into their website. You wouldn't want it to automatically submit when you got to 16 digits would you?
NO. you'd want to hit the enter key.
The phone is no different.
Except that you have no display so it's easier to miss a number.
Sumana: "I certainly hope you don't mean you're going to insist on an explanation from the customer service rep, who almost certainly did not design the system and finds it as frustrating as you do."
Don't worry, I never take stuff out on customer service reps. I always ask for the boss' boss first.
adsfasdf: "The phone is no different.
Except that you have no display so it's easier to miss a number."
My phones all have displays.
The more annoying part is that once you get to a live person, what do they ask you for?
Your account number you just typed in.
At the local Bank of America ATMs, you enter your pin and have to press a button whether you want to proceed in english or spanish. You can also press cancel to get your card back without proceeding.
Ah, that's why I couldn't get the damn thing to work.... Being british, I used the pound sign (£), not the hash (#)
As a veteran of the IVR world (don't hate me, please), I can tell you that while many people do mis-enter their numbers, they often don't remember that they are also supposed to hit pound. Nor do they think of hitting it when they realize they've made an error. (By the way, displays are of limited use since touch-tones are accepted as they are pushed. the pound key is NOT at all like an enter key. No deleting, just the chance to start over.)
So, one solution for this is offering both touch-tone entry and speech recognition, when it's done right. It's much easier to read and say the number in, versus reading it and pressing 3 - 4 keys at at time. Obviously, speech reco has its own issues, but multi-modality lets the user choose.
But even more, the real brokenness is often not just limited modality or instructions with ambiguous usefulness, but bad instructions (like Citibank) and in handling the problems that do occur. How often has "Invalid entry" grated your ears? There is truly no justification for handling input problems in that manner. As little d dan said "You won't find that in my shop."
P.S. Quote "Why does everyone call it a PIN Number?" How about its kissing cousin "ATM machine"? But, to echo Bob, what seems like redundancy is often helpful and even needed when context is not sufficient. "I was looking for my PIN/pin/pen." "PIN number" clears that right up. Not too mention that "PIN = Personal Identification Number" is an industry term chosen without thought to the confusion it might cause.
P.P.S. This is actually a big deal. Automated system such as these handle tens of millions of calls daily. There's good reason that industry has such a lousy rep.
You should never EVER have to repeat back an account number or CC number.
Account numbers incorporate check digits. If the checksum works out, accept it without any further ado. Otherwise, reject it out of hand.
What I want to know, pound key or not, why don't ANY of them ever say "...if you make a mistake, press * to start over." As someone already mentioned, often I am fully aware when I mis-key a number, often the third or fourth digit into the sequence. Not having been told how to recover from a mistake, I'm left to either try pressing "enter" on an entry I *know* is invalid or incorrect (which is counter-intutive), or if pressing # ahead of time doesn't do anything, I have to finish the sequence with random keypresses (or the same key over and over X times) until I get somewhere. THAT is the most broken aspect of this, in my opinion.
Comments on this entry are closed
Previous: Safeco Field garage sign | Main | Next: Perkins menu
Actualy I find this feature quite useful. If I push the wrong number I can just hit the pound sign without having to finish putting in the entire number I already know is going to be wrong and start over from the begining
Posted by: Albert at September 21, 2005 12:52 AM