If there’s one thing I find tiresome, it’s calling government offices. So when I had to call the Hungarian National Tax and Customs Administration (NAV) recently, I wasn’t looking forward to the experience.
Since this is not a frequent occasion, I had to look up the number (I know, I’m a horrible citizen). That’s when the surprisingly delightful part happened.
The Tax and Customs Administration, which has to handle a wide range of potential requests, uses a phone menu to route callers to the appropriate agents. Think "Press 1 for tax filings."
Normally, you navigate such a menu by listening to all the available options and choosing one that remotely matches your issue. Then you find yourself in a submenu, then another one, and another one, until you’re eventually routed to a human operator.
There are many issues with these phone menus:
- Being told about the current options slows down the choice.
- It’s just so easy to forget the first option by the time you hear the last.
- You have no way to explore the menu structure except by actually choosing a submenu.
And this is where the tax office, which is not known for its strong UX game, made an outstanding move: it shared its menu structure on its website.