Retired IT manager Nigel Clarke has created a website providing call centre menu sequences for ease of access to thousands of services.
After becoming increasingly frustrated with amount of time he spent trawling through the number of options and recorded information given on call centre menus, Mr Clarke decided to do something about it.
Over a period of seven years, Mr Clarke noted down the sequences he used regularly in an attempt to cut down on the long periods of time in took to speak to the right service or department.
“It can take over four minutes to get to the service required if the caller listens to each stage in full. As an example, speaking to an adviser at HM Revenue & Customers only required pressing four buttons but it could take six minutes to get through each menu level,” Mr Clarke said.
Pleasepress1.com has been developed out of a “labour of love”, after he was surprised by the ‘emotional response’ he had received from people he had mentioned his recordings to.
“I’m not against the system, but I am against bad design,” Mr Clarke said about the menus.
“No menu is best – but if it is a necessity then design it properly. I think two levels maximum is ideal. Some stretch to three. You don’t really want much more than that.”
And instead of devoting himself to maintaining the website full-time, Mr Clarke would like the companies to do it for him, “I’d like the companies themselves to say, ‘we care about our customers, we’ll publish our menus’.”
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