Life & Technology

As technology marches on, one of the casualties seems to be personal service, with tonnes of companies doing away with a real life person, and putting what I call a ‘cyber greeter’ on the phone.

Vodafone has Lara, a cyber greeter who asks you questions and depending on your answers, eventually puts you through to where you want to go. But there are problems with this, both from a personal and technology point of view.

For a start, there is the impersonal nature of it all. They are saying to me “while we want your money and custom, we can’t be bothered investing in a real, live person to meet your needs.” Second, from a technology stand point, in my experience, there are problems with the voice recognition technology not recognising what I am saying. This, in the past, has led to me getting through to the next stage after two or three attempts – and when there are a few stages, it can be very frustrating.. This would be solved if a real person was answering your call in the first place.

That aside, I have found a way to cheat and beat the system so you can get through to a real person a lot quicker. Make up gobbledegook! All you do is spout nonsense into the phone, and you will get “I’m sorry, I could not understand your answer, please try again” a couple of times, before the voice then defaults to “I’ll just put you through to someone who can help you out” mode. Maybe it’s not a perfect way to circumnavigate the system, but it beats wasting time trying to explain to inanimate object where you want to go.

I read an interesting story over the weekend about a recent survey that said that SMS, or texting, was the most popular form of communication. This doesn’t surprise me, as texting has become second nature to most of us.

What the survey did get me doing though, was thinking. How much, in real terms, does texting actually cost, and how much are the Telco’s making? I have heard through various sources and my own hunting around that the cost to the Telco’s of somebody sending a text message can be anywhere between a quarter of a cent, up to one cent, while they charge you a lot more depending on your plan. They would argue on unlimited plans, the more texts you make, the more value for money you get. But that isn’t the issue.

Can Telcos charge you a lot less and still make a lot of money? Telstra made $3.7 billion after tax last year, while Optus made $583 million. This, on face value, seems a little excessive and both Telcos could offer a little bit better deals in my opinion.

For an excellent article on how pricing works, and why Telcos don’t disclose the true cost, you should look at this American example of why Telcos appear to be making money from nothing. Computer science professor, Srinivasan Keshav from the University of Waterloo, in Ontario, explains it best when he says “…text messages are not just tiny; they are also free riders, tucked into what’s called a control channel, space reserved for operation of the wireless network..it doesn’t cost the carrier much more to transmit a hundred million messages than a million.”

Do I believe Telco’s shouldn’t make money? Of course not. If they want to make money, then it’s up to them, but what they should do it be up front about costs, and charge a fair and reasonable price. The purpose of the company is to provide a dividend to shareholders – what interests me is; is that dividend bordering on usury with regard to what it costs customers to have the service?

Ebay is by far the most popular auction site in Australia, creating over $2.5 billion worth of transactions annually, and, in some cases, providing a source of income for third-party companies.

I have used it on occasion, and have had no problems with the company so far, but it has recently announced a few changes to the site that raised my eyebrows.

Currently when you buy from Ebay, you can use several methods of payment – cheque, cash, EFT, money orders and Paypal. Now, Ebay has announced they will only allow payment using cash or Paypal. Not a lot of people use the cash option, especially when it comes to delivering items interstate, so in fact, for some, there will only be one option. Thankfully the ACCC are looking into and it looks like they are going to nix the idea, but rumour has it eBay will appeal any unfavourable decision.
Ebay claims they are doing this for our own good, but that kind of rings hollow for three reasons:

1)If it’s for the consumer’s own good, then why have the cash option? Surely of the multitude ways of paying, that is the riskiest, with people either giving out wrong amounts, or haggling once the deal is done. If there is a dispute, it’s a lot easier to cancel a money order or cheque, or get the bank to reverse an EFT – once cash is handed over, it’s a lot harder to try and get it back when you get the goods home.

2)If Paypal is such a good way to pay, then why won’t eBay allow similar options like Bpay and Paymate in on the action?

3)Probably the most obvious reason of all – guess who owns Paypal? You guessed it, eBay. And with eBay owning Paypal, they get listing fees AND a cut of the payment because they charge people a percentage of the price.

There is also a fundamental principle underlying all this, too – freedom of choice. It sticks in the craw that eBay has basically ransomed people to use their system in a take-it-or-leave-it manner.

I think people understand that companies are in business to make money, and I have no problem with that. I do have a problem with monopolies, and no matter how eBay spin it, this certainly looks like it.

Maybe people will start exploring other online auction options..