I spent yesterday on the phone with my bank trying to order checks for our ministry account. I ended up ordering from an online check printing service instead. Why? I was bounced to three different departments (all of them very nice, by the way), only to receive a message that said something along the lines of “we cannot process that request, please hang up and try your call again”. This was after 10 minutes of routing and re-routing through their system, explaining what I needed over and over. I’m not writing this to blow off steam – I wasn’t that upset. I’m not writing it to tell you I’m switching banks – I love my bank. But I am tired of not being able to contact people when I need too. I love technology – but not when it replaces people (side note: THAT is the issue with SOME online churches). Seth Godin (see blogroll) has an interesting article today about a similar thing – not being able to contact a company directly by email. That is ultimately frustrating as well. I have even encountered church websites that have forms going to office@thischurch.org instead of straight to the Pastor or whomever. If that doesn’t say “disconnected” and “leave us alone” I don’t know what does. The point: if you are going to use technology in your business (email, voice automated systems), then make it personable. What does your technology say to people?
Any thoughts on this? Am I the only one?