Here’s a short letter from the editor of Speech Technology Magazine, the one company you’d think would positively, absolutely get their phone IVR to sound absolutely wonderful. That turns out not to be the case… in fact, they don’t even use speech recognition!I know they investigated and solved the problem (I visited their offices recently); when they provide a follow-up letter about this incident I’ll post that link as well.The moral of the story: think for yourself and think for your customers. First, think for yourself. Don’t blindly copy idiotic statements from other systems (“Please pay attention as our menu options have changed”) that are (a) not true and (b) not useful.And second, think for your customers. Again, it’s easy enough to put yourself into your customer’s shoes. Will your customers be mollified if you say “your call is important to us” or will they feel patronized? (Hint: when you call someone else’s system, how do you feel about that announcement?)