Business Protocol

With the increasing costs of hiring people, or even keeping people on a job, many business persons have had to enforce various measures to cut back on operation costs. “Down sizing” has become a popular means of doing so, which in effect is firing persons. Others have chosen to reduce the pay of their staff so as to keep the full complement. Yet still others have removed or reduced certain amenities that their staff get, like removing the cappuchino machine or cutting down on the number of ac units in operation at any given time. In keeping with the theme of “down sizing”, many companies that use operators to interact with the public have now opted for an automated system. This essentially removes the human component and giving a machine a persons job.

Automated answering devices, however, lack the ability to properly understand the needs of a human. If someone has a simple question that they need answered, they have to wait for the machine to give them countless instructions of which numbers to press and so on before they are able to speak to someone. I for one hate those systems and find that most of the times when I do eventually get through to a real person, they are either not the right person to ask the question or they are unable to give me an answer right now. Mind you, automated answering systems do save money over time that would have been spent on paying a human, but it is unfair to the person who lost their job because of the machine and to persons who could have been employed in that position. In any case, each company has a choice and does what they have to do in order to stay competitive in the global market.