On the phone with a human being in India recently he related that he ‘owned’ my problem.  It was his problem to resolve and he would do it.  The problem, of course is that if he didn’t fix the problem then claiming that he owned the problem would just drive me to loathing hearing someone tell me that they were going to fix my problem by owning it.  One of the problems with script based help systems, just like a touch-tone system, is that the language becomes boring, it become irritating to customers, and it can cause the customer to perceive a poor support experience.  That is why live human being with a direction, but not a script, will be more useful.  That of course is problematic because that requires training to actually know the product.  It also requires people with personality and character.

I’m sure you’ve experienced this yourselves, but I’m writing it here just in case some CEO/Exec type person stumbles across it and decides he’s going to do something about it 🙂