A new research poster from the School of Emergent Priorities surveys callers to a shire switchboard on how long they listen before pressing a key, and the shire now records its menu to fit the answer.
A survey of 2,306 switchboard callers sets the length and order of the recorded menu, and the recording is re-cut every quarter
A shire’s recorded phone menu now runs for as long as its callers do, and no longer. The change follows Callers Press Before the Menu Reaches Option One, a new research poster from the School of Emergent Priorities that reports, as a full distribution rather than an average, how many seconds of the recording callers hear before they press a key.
The poster draws on a keypad survey offered to callers across a single shire’s switchboard, with 2,306 responses. It finds that most callers press early, that callers who have rung before press earlier still, and that a great many reach for zero before the greeting has ended. The shire has taken the distribution as its guide: the recording is cut to the length within which nine in ten callers have pressed, the options are renumbered in the order callers reach for them, and the cut is made again each quarter.
A recording has only as long as a caller allows it, and that turned out to be a good deal shorter than any of us had rehearsed.
— Associate Professor Kwame Lindqvist, Director, Master of Priority Studies
Dr Anouk Mensah, Postdoctoral Fellow, described the quarterly re-cut as “a menu that keeps learning how long it is”. The University is pleased to see a piece of everyday telephony given so patient a hearing, and the School expects the approach to sit comfortably within its continuing work on how institutions listen to those who ring them. Lecturer Dr Iben Chikere co-authored the poster.
The full poster is available from the University’s research repository under an open licence, doi:10.5555/slop.ziron3.