Common Sense: Who Is This Really Convenient For?

We begin with a famous phrase I have cited in earlier columns, uttered by Abraham Lincoln. “You can fool all of the people some of the time, and you can fool some of the people all of the time, but you cannot fool all of the people all of the time.” As all of us do our best to navigate an increasingly complex world, this Boomer wants to scream this out every time some automated, prompt-driven situation arises, and the all too stilted voice tells me what I can do for my convenience. No doubt, some of this is generational, but the basic logic seems legitimate for all of us.

Press One… and Wait Forever

Perhaps the most frequently experienced example of this is attempting to start the resolution of virtually any problem under the sun with a phone call. Do you even remember the last time a live person answered, asking how they could help you? It takes forever and a day to get a human being on the other end of the phone to discuss the issue at hand. Then, when it finally happens, the individual invariably insists on putting you through a pre-determined set of questions. As my soon-to-be 99-year-old mother has long said—little people putting checks in little boxes.

To top things off, you are often shifted to another part of the company, often with another set of prompts, before you get to another human who then puts you through another set of pre-determined set of questions. “Let’s see what we can do to solve your problem” is a phrase foreign to the entire process.

Convenience… for Who?

What do you suppose the level of support would be for a law that requires all automated systems to begin with “hit one, if you want to speak as quickly as possible with another human being?” It is frustrating enough to go through this tedious exercise without repeatedly being told how it is all for my convenience.

Going to a grocery store, being asked to check out and bag your own groceries is many things. Convenient for me is not one. To then be treated as a potential criminal when you are ready to leave adds insult to injury.

You do not have to be a rocket scientist to figure out what is going on here. The price of an item is the same whether you do the check-out yourself or if a cashier does it for you. Let’s do the math. You replace six cashiers with one person overseeing six self-checkouts. Gee, when your fixed costs of operation go down, does that increase your profit margin on those items you are selling?

Do It Yourself… Even at the Top

Remember when you wanted a room at a hotel and just phoned and reserved it, or had someone do it for you? Now, we have CEO’s going online doing it for themselves. Nobody will ever convince me that this is the highest and best use of that person’s time. (My plea to return to a more hierarchical structure of management will be the subject of another column). Should you try to directly call the hotel, 90 percent of the time, you are put through another set of prompts with the frequent reminder it might be quicker and easier for you to do this online. Most of the time, it is a process not directly involving the hotel you are seeking to book a room with. Again, easier for exactly who?

Call the doctor for an appointment, and, once again, be ready for the exercise of prompts all over again.

The Follow-Up Fatigue

Am I the only one who gets aggravated by receiving 165 texts and emails asking me, after the fact, to participate in a customer satisfaction survey on my experience? How about getting endless reminders to go to an appointment you did all the work to get set?

There are countless other examples where we are doing the work for a business (and healthcare certainly is a business), all the while being told this is all to make life easier for us.

Common Sense Still Applies

Tell me you have found another way to increase your profit margins that will require me to do a little more of what you had previously done for me. For heaven’s sake, please cease and desist from telling me how this is so very convenient for me.

Common Sense: We are not all fools to be treated as stupid children. Please stop insulting us with your empty blather.