I'm preparing a couple of presentations for the upcoming Speechtek gathering in NYC, where I will talk about why people hate IVR (will try to dig a bit deeper than the obvious) and what designers can do to be as smart as possible in their interactions with callers.
One thing that occurred to me that does not get mentioned nearly enough to explain why people often detest IVRs is the following: almost always, unless the caller knows that they are calling into an automated system, an interaction with an IVR always starts on the wrong note in that the caller is forced to engage in an interaction in a way that they didn't necessarily expect or prepare for. They want to speak with a human and instead get a machine. How would you feel if you went up to teller counter only to discover that instead of a human person you find an ATM machine....
Of course, in itself, that doesn't explain aversion for IVRs. But I think this asymmetric imposition from the machine starts the conversation off on a bad note from the get go, with the caller feeling that they have no choice but to submit...
Will be doing more thinking on this....
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