THE WORLD'S telephones outnumber its computers by at least five to one, according to one US consultant. But perhaps we have not noticed how often it is the computers which are answering the phones.
Anyone who has ever dialled a large customer service company knows the perils of getting trapped in "voicemail bell", a technological labyrinth devoid of human life. A recent call to a motoring organisation in search of a traffic update began innocently enough: I chose number one to identify myself as the user of a pushbutton telephone and number three for traffic reports. There followed two further options, narrowing down the geographical area in question. After minutes of the voicemail system's calm, measured tones, I was put through to a recorded traffic announcement for London nearly an hour out of date. Good thing I was not calling from the car phone in a traffic jam.
As you can imagine, telecommunications firms were the first to jump on the voicemail bandwagon. Webster's International Multimedia Project, which deals with the Microsoft Encarta CD Rom, has installed a complex system which splits off the callers who know the extension "of the party they wish to reach" at an early stage, leaving the rest to struggle through the online directory.
One menu gives six options, one button for each department. I pressed six for "Other inquiries" and was met by a baffled silence, broken by the computer telling me stiffly, "I'm sorry, I did not hear your selection. Please reenter your selection now." So it's a little hard of hearing, I thought, feeling superior, and pressed 6 again. Same result. We kept up this to and fro for 40 seconds, after which my patience gave out and I began pressing other numbers at random. Same response. Finally, the system hung up on me.
Internet service provider Compuserve fares badly: the only way I could get a person on toe line was by pressing the number assigned to "account cancellations".
The BBC has retained operators who route calls through to employees' voicemail, thus achieving the dual goals of telephone efficiency and keeping a "human face" on the corporation.
After these experiences, I was not surprised to find that voice mail was voted "most useless communications technology in a survey of British business executives last October. Americans, though, have embraced it enthusiastically, to the point where people often call an office late at night so as to "catch the voice mail" and avoid talking to a human being.
Fittingly, an example of a truly labyrinthine voicemail system in London can be found at the US Embassy. The caller starts off with a simple menu of five options, but soon progresses through stage after stage of further choices. Occasionally a recorded voice will give another number to call "for more information", but the odds of hearing a live voice instead of the taped American drawl are slim. The experienced voicemail veteran can escape this trap by pressing 0, the virtual equivalent of a "get out of jail free" card. Many systems use this as a short cut to an operator.
While most of the population struggles with telephone keypads, the voicemail boffins have moved on to the next step in phone technology: voice recognition systems. These work on the same principle as ordinary voice mail, but the more sophisticated computer at the other end recognises whole words rather than blips and beeps.
Presumably the system's creators thought that giving the caller a chance to speak to a machine in the English language makes for a more human and fulfilling telephone experience. . .