TIME: Almanac 1990/1990 Time Magazine Compact Almanac, The (1991)(Time).iso/time/052289/05228900.009

Text File | 1990-09-17 | 6KB | 99 lines

TECHNOLOGY, Page 98

Hello! This is Voice Mail Speaking

The new phone systems are fast, efficient and a pain in the neck


    One day last month Linda Hiwot, a Brooklyn junior high school
teacher, got a surprise when she phoned her bank for a credit-card
balance. Instead of the familiar human teller, she was answered by
a computer-generated voice that told all callers with Touch-Tone
phones to "press 1 now," thus beginning a series of steps that
would eventually lead to her balance. When she called the IRS about
an overdue tax check, another computer voice directed her to "push
9" for refunds. Even a local department store had acquired a robot
operator, which like an overeager clerk insisted on taking Hiwot
on a guided tour of the entire store ("For furniture, home
decorating or major appliances, push 3"). Desperate for human
contact, she finally dialed a friend, only to be invited to leave
a message at the sound of the tone. "It was like the Twilight
Zone," says Hiwot. "I felt there was nobody out there but
machines."

    It is a feeling Hiwot, and everybody else, had better get used
to. The U.S., and much of the world, is in the midst of a sweeping
technological conversion, replacing human secretaries and operators
with a new kind of high-tech wizardry known variously as automated
answering systems, voice-messaging units or, most simply, voice
mail. In the past six years, tens of thousands of voice-messaging
systems have been installed in stores, offices and government
agencies. The units answer phones, route callers and dispense
information ranging from baseball scores and movie reviews to
weather reports and horoscopes. Even the Vatican has a voice-mail
system, allowing devout callers to hear messages recorded by the
Pope.

    The technological forerunner of the modern voice-messaging
system was the common telephone-answering machine. But now, instead
of talking to a simple tape recorder, people are conversing with
a computer at the end of the line. At the heart of the new systems
are special-purpose computer chips and software that convert human
speech into bits of digital code. These digitized voices can then
be stored on magnetic disks and retrieved in a flash, just like any
other piece of computer data.

    The simplest systems do just what the old answering machines
do: pick up the phone, play a prerecorded greeting and record
whatever the caller has to say. Some add technological bells and
whistles, like push-button controls that let their owners save
messages or dispatch replies -- to one person or to hundreds of
people. Other systems are set up to dispense information, offering
callers a menu of choices and playing the messages they select. The
most powerful machines combine voice-message units with huge
computer files, which enable callers to use their telephones to
navigate through long lists of stock quotes or catalog items. Some
units even allow a caller to order merchandise and charge it to a
credit card, without ever speaking to a human.

    Enthusiasts insist that the systems not only improve
productivity but actually enhance human interactions by eliminating
wasted calls and unproductive rounds of "telephone tag."
Conventional office phone calls are surprisingly inefficient,
according to studies performed by Travelers before the
Hartford-based insurance company switched to voice mail. Gus
Bender, a vice president for data processing, reports that three
out of four calls do not reach the desired party or yield the
information needed, and that when written messages are taken, nine
out of ten contain at least one error. Now, using an extensive
voice-mail system, 12,000 field and office workers cut through the
chitchat, communicating cleanly and efficiently through digitally
stored messages, some 31,000 a day. Says Bender: "It's the most
important piece of office automation we've installed since the
paper copier."

    Voice-message systems seem to be everywhere, dispensing
everything from medical services ("If you have a medical emergency,
press 1") to dial-a-porn ("Press 4 for something kinky"). Curtis
Hatcher of Greenwood, Fla., uses his voice-mail system to run a hot
line for peanut farmers. In St. Petersburg, the Pinellas County
sheriff's department uses one to communicate with informants. The
new telephone companies have spawned a whole genre of for-profit
voice-mail services like Touch-Tone Baseball, a popular game that
allows callers to answer trivia questions like "How many bases did
Ty Cobb steal in his rookie year?" (Answer: two.)

    Not everyone is enamored of voice mail, however. Households
with rotary phones, for example, cannot use the systems without
upgrading to Touch-Tone and paying a monthly surcharge. Many people
complain that the stored messages tend to be long-winded and
awkwardly organized, forcing callers to field long series of
multipart questions just to get a simple answer. Others find that
the calls they place to automated message systems are less likely
to be returned than messages left with human secretaries.

    And because these devices are basically complex computer
systems, they invite the kinds of problems that have become endemic
to the electronic age. For example, there are voice-mail hackers
who use personal computers to infiltrate commercial message
systems. In one case, interlopers succeeded in replacing a
Chicago-area company's greeting message with off-color wisecracks.
And anyone who has ever wrestled with a modern office phone can
sympathize with the California man who pressed the wrong button and
sent a private love message to the entire department.