Complaint Department

Posted on April 25, 2011 by Fred Stiening
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7 Responses to Complaint Department

  1. jpaulwede says:
    April 25, 2011 at 8:51 pm

    For Complaint Department inquiries, I was always directed to the third floor of a two-story building…

    • Art Stone says:
      April 25, 2011 at 8:56 pm

      Press #1 for English, press #2 for Spanish, press #3 for a human

      • MrC_5150 says:
        May 8, 2011 at 11:12 pm

        I noticed that Comcast customer service got rid of the “press 1 for English” prompt. The “press 2 for Spanish is still active, “en Espanol”, of course. The reason for this became apparent to me when I noticed that 3 of 4 customer service reps sound like they’re currently students in the local non-profit’s ESL class.

        • Art Stone says:
          May 9, 2011 at 1:03 am

          There could be another reason. The computer might have “remembered” last time you called that you wanted English, and so assume that is your preference.

          When you dial an “800” number, the computers at Customer Service is sent “ANI” information that identifies the phone number of the caller. You can’t block that because they are paying for the call. So before you’re put into the wait queue, the computer already knows your account history, how many times you’ve called before, if you’re a trouble maker, etc…

          The same applies to calling a toll-free number to call into a radio talk show. The “sophisticated” radio shows look up your prior history calling the show.

  2. Art Stone says:
    April 25, 2011 at 10:32 pm

    I’m going to see if I can move comments around to place them under different threads now – if I lose them, I’m sorry!

  3. TheChairman says:
    May 3, 2011 at 11:19 am

    Okay, here’s one:

    While testing a feed near the end of the hour, I click the link and hear G. Gordon Liddy… meanwhile the popup window is still “waiting 20 / 40 seconds”. Finally, the options appear to submit my test results, but now the ‘hour’ has ended and I get this:

    You are testing G. Gordon Liddy on KITZ AM
    News/TalkPlease try again after the news break is over. Please try again after the news break is over.

    A MAJOR ANNOYANCE, because now I have to wait 7+ minutes to report the test result… moreover, if the ‘hour’ happens to be the end of that show, the test is moot.

    I also don’t understand why there is a 20 second delay on some popups, and 40 sec on others… why is there a delay at all? i.e. If I must wait for a video ad, so be it… but if the station no longer does ads, or their stream launches quickly, why make me wait?

    • Art Stone says:
      May 3, 2011 at 4:29 pm

      All of the things you have bumped into are to deal with fake testing – where someone thinks they are being helpful by just running down the list of things to be tested clicking on “it worked” as fast as they can. This is not about your testing, it’s about the process.

      Most talk shows have almost no content after :50 after the hour. Over time, a significant pattern of fake testing showed up during the last few minutes of the hour. People finish listening to the show they have been listening to, and then decide to “test” during the last few minutes before the top of the hour – they never hear the actual show, but assume it was probably correct and click on “It worked” because either they assume it is probably correct, or because the show is still listed on the station’s web site or the player.

      I’ve considered making the end of the testing at :55 past the hour. The problem is if someone does a “test” that I think is suspect, by the time I see the test and click on the stream to verify the test, I bump into the news break.

      The complication is that streams have lag – some as little as 30 seconds, some as much as 5 minutes – making it impossible to have a cutoff time that will be 100% accurate.

      So the answer to your complaint is – if you really care about G Gordon Liddy, don’t wait until the last 30 seconds of the final hour to test it.

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