Forum Discussion
Digital Touch Tone vs. Touch Tone
Technology can improve our daily lives and can also complicate them. Going forward at times, can result in going backwards. "If it isn't broke, leave it alone". Touch tone Old technology has a preprogrammed "tone" established, allowing a connection to be heard and passed through with correct information. Newer technology uses thousands of tones associated with 0-9 computer screen connections. " if you would like to receive this call pres 1", by pressing 1, this tone must connect with the exact receiving tone as the outgoing tone. If the tones do not exactly match, you may find yourself pressing "Beethoven" vs "Motzart". Your call will not connect if your note does not match the receiving note. How do companies address this issue? After several agents pass the buck, hang up on you and you finally manage an agent without preprogrammed bot mentality, you will discover a claim to their technicians will be processed for further review. Usually a 3 day or week process. A kind agent will brief you upon this expected length, though technically this is a breech in policy, some agents are actually still bread with human decency.
A history of incomming lines will be viewed for their tone matching capabilities to rule out whose playing b flat. Once identified a tune up follows. However as with all instruments, those musicians know nothing ever stays perfectly in tune. Going forward can at times mean, your really better off sometimes with one octave than with multiple octaves, as there are less variables of your touch tone being unable to play the exact reciprocating frequencies needed to simply....connect calls.
Life is a balance of machine and mankind. Machines are only as good as they are programmed. A good company will never put policy over their paying customers. A company is only as good as its character, not of its policies. Policies are fluid rules needing to bend with the tide of current needs. A company unwilling to address their outdated or unacceptable policies, will find their "product" will never support their character. But quality of Character will always support a product.
I am dealing with this issue right now at my medical clinic and the local hospital. Patients are calling to complain in droves because they have an iphone or android and press options on our IVR and nothing happens. They have to hangup and try the call again. Sometimes as many as 5 or more call backs are needed before their tones are registered. I got a T-Mobile line of service to test and called not only our number, but the local hospital whom we have no technology ties to. I reached out to T-Mobile to complain and after back and forth, they told me it was "an iphone issue" and closed my ticket. So I went and bought a T-Mobile android phone and duplicated the issue. I then got another Android phone and duplicated the issue yet again. I also had a coworker with T-Mobile try and duplicated yet again. They came back claiming the issue was now with my Nord N200 device being "international" and "not supporting VOLTE.". I explained that this is a USA phone, with all the carrier updates, and on the phone screen it clearly shows VOLTE in the corner. They then told me I would have to have our patients call to complain about the issue because they can't create a larger ticket unless people call to complain. Never mind that a large amount of our patients are older, and don't have the patience to reach out to T-Mobile. Plus, they will just be told to "try wifi calling" (which doesn't work), or "Reset their network settings" which will clear out all their wifi saved networks and create even more problems, and "reboot the phone". Its honestly a joke. I have never had this issue with my Verizon phone, and my boss at AT&T with no problems.
