Amar's Alley: The Battle Between Contact Centers and Answering Machines

“Hi! you have reached blah blah blah, please leave your name and number and I will get back to you." Familiar? It should be….these words likely echo in your ears at some point everyday! Correction…this probably happens to you on almost every call!

Allow me to provide you with an outside perspective from a member of the “old guard” (let’s just leave my age at that), who always jumps to answer a call, regardless of what’s going on and even if the number is unknown. In my younger days, we would run across the office floor, or down the flight of stairs at home to pick-up the phone, because we were taught that if a device rings, it's for a reason. Today, I am intrigued by how often I come across that same old message, “Hi! You have reached (blah blah blah blah), please leave your name…"

I am not exaggerating! Easily 8 out of 10 calls I make are never picked up on the first go. It is almost as if it’s a new fashion trend not to do so. I mean, there you are sitting, sipping your coffee and you hear your phone buzz. You want to pick it up, and you even see the name flashing, but if you do so (on the first go), you might not be considered one of those, "too busy and successful for anyone else types. So what do you do? Let it go to voicemail! Five minutes later you decide to call back. But, guess what? Now the other person returns the favor based on the same principles that kept you from answering your phone, and the vicious circle of phone tag begins! Having fun yet?

Buy the most expensive phone, buy the best plans available, look for the best voice quality and customer service, discuss at length who a better provider is, and all you do is leave voicemails and return voicemails; only to leave another voicemail!! No wonder my kids' phone bills are so high!

So, let’s put this in perspective as it relates to the contact center world; a world I’ve been associated with for quite some time providing state of the art, hosted contact center solutions to customers all across the United States and the rest of the world. In this business, you can’t afford to play phone tag. As “fun” as it may be in your private life, there is no room for such inefficiency in this one. Your agents expect to get ahold of someone and don’t have time to leave voicemails. That’s not what you pay them to do.

So imagine a world without “Answering Machine Detection.” Scared? I would be.

Luckily “Answering Machine Detection” is alive and well. More importantly ACCURATE “Answering Machine Detection” is alive and well. If not, your agents would “crave” to talk to a human, and your contact center business owner would be spending truck loads of money on your agents just to talk to machines.

So, let’s do some simple math. An efficient Answering Machine Detection system/software can give you (this is based on my observation that 8 out of 10 calls I make are a currently a waste) the following: