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Even Telecom Workers Don't Want To Talk On the Phone (fastcompany.com)
An anonymous reader shares a report: Of the 1,000 Americans surveyed by Fundera, more than half said they prefer email, even though an often overflowing inbox has been proven to hinder productivity. Other methods of communicating paled in comparison. For instance, face-to-face conversations came in a distant second, preferred by only 15.8% of respondents, while phone calls came in at the bottom across 17 different industries. Even telecom workers don't want to talk on the phone: 70% would prefer to use instant messages or email.
To Whom It May Concern,
Put it in writing. Don't call us, we'll call you.
Sincerely,
Corporate Headquarters
If we answer the phone then we have to do things like help our customers and solve problems. If you don't answer the phone, eventually people stop calling....
...and IN SOVIET RUSSIA, beowulf clusters imagine 1, 2, 3 profit!!!! jokes made out of YOU!!!
A majority (76%) of ER doctors admitted that they did not want to need to use the ER, and 63% of morticians said they did not want to have to make use of their own services personally. And only 14% of Slashdot editors admitted that they felt they needed to use an editor before accepting a submission.
Receive email from your boss was much better than a phone call. Gave you time to work on an approach to what was being asked. Read receipt off of course.
So people responded that they prefer to communicate in the inverse order of effectiveness and efficiency.
Email is a benefit for me. It lets me read the email, check my data, craft an answer, and have a paper trail of the task. I also know what is needed and can refer to the email should there be a dispute.
Phone: "Hey, I need you to blah blah blah"
Me: "Okay, send me an email with the details and I'll get on it."
[John]
Shit better not happen!
The majority of my coworkers communicate via Microsoft Lync (IM) with a headset. I got a coworker who uses the phone because he doesn't want to leave a paper trail that could make him look bad. He gets mad at me because I document everything out of habit. What he says over the phone doesn't always match what he writes in the ticket log. I've put him on my "trust but verify" list of coworkers.
If someone emails me, I can deal with it whenever it's convenient for me. If they phone me, I'm supposed to deal with it right that moment, no matter what I was in the middle of when they interrupted me. Or I can let it go to voicemail, but that's way less convenient to check than email.
"I'm too busy to research this and form an educated opinion, but I do have time to tell everyone my uninformed opinion."
Phone calls are good if you need an immediate response. Very few things need an immediate response. 911 is about the only thing I can think of. Maybe some big-shot corporate decisions as well. Occasionally you do get a situation where your work is stalled until you get an answer from someone else - those warrant a phone call.
For the vast majority of other situations, a slightly delayed but more accurate response is preferable. If your boss calls you asking for the exact component numbers of last year's EBITDA, you can drop everything you're doing and frantically look for the data in a directory of preliminary, final, and revised spreadsheets to try to get him an answer immediately when he only needs it for a meeting later in the week. Then call him back 30 minutes later with newer numbers when you realize you mis-clicked and opened the wrong spreadsheet. Or he can email you the request, and you can take your time to make sure you get the correct numbers to him in your first and only reply, saving both him and yourself a lot of time.
That's what makes email such a great communications tool. I can take the emails I receive which I need a response, move them into a To-Do folder, assign them stars according to priority, and tackle them in something close to optimal order. You can't do that with phone calls or even text messaging. (Technically you can, but it involves double data entry - you have to type up and enter all the information someone just gave you into your calendar or to-do list. With email, the fact that they've typed up their request to email it to you saves you the trouble of typing it up again.)
The folks who insist on phone calls for everything are usually people who prioritize talking directly with people over efficiency, or who enjoy (ab)using their higher status to make underlings needlessly run about trying to immediately fulfill their requests. Both are a drag on economic productivity.
I don't mind the phone if I need a complicated real-time conversation. The thing is, I usually don't. Sometimes I need something in writing, not just to check on the other person, but also to be sure I remember correctly what he said. And I usually don't need real-time. If I get 6 emails, I can merge that into my workflow without disrupting everything. 6 phone calls? Arrggghhhh!!!!!
Slow down, cowboy! It has been 4 hours since you last posted. You must wait another few hours.
Talking on the phone is frankly awful. I think that the only reason why it was more popular in the past was due to the lack of alternatives.
When someone calls you, they're operating under the unspoken assumption that whatever they've called about is more important than what you're doing now. It's essentially the same as someone walking up to you and pestering you about something while you either need or want to do, but with the added benefit of making an awful ringing sound.
Most people instinctively know this, and would generally rather not be rude if they can help it. This means that they don't call people unless they have no other choice.
If you call me at work, you are going to ask something that takes me at least 15 minutes to find out. And you will not have the attention capacity to take in the answer that will take half an hour to explain.
Just f***ing send an email and receive an essay answering all your questions, including those you didn't know to ask.
Or call and get a wild guess because I can't possibly remember every minute detail about a dozen projects.
Why is customer support still mainly done over the phone? Why not do it over instant messenger or text?
Old people need to hear a voice ?
You do realize that "Telecom" is short for "Telecommunications", not for "Telephone" right? It simply means communicating over long distances, it doesn't mean only by telephone. "Telecom" companies these days are more about internet than about phone.
Why would you expect people who work primarily in the field of keeping the internet running (Telecom workers) to prefer to use telephones more than the general public does?
What a ridiculous spin on the title/summary!
... due to my disabilities where I can't hear and talk well. I get annoyed when they want me to talk and hear!!
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
This might make me sound like an old fogey, but I wonder if this has to do with call quality and user experience.
I grew up with landlines. I remember cellphones coming into prominence and I remember how annoying it was to talk on them. The calls would get dropped, the audio quality was bad, and worst of all, the latency was terrible.
Over time networks seem to have become more reliable, and the audio quality has gotten better, but all cell calls still seem to have a latency issue. This makes them feel disjunct, unpleasant, and unnatural. That's why I prefer texting.
Since so few people use landlines nowadays, I wonder if most people don't consciously notice this latency anymore. It could be that although they don't notice the latency they still perceive the discomfort it creates.
It would be interesting to run an experiment to see if people, when forced to use landlines, actually preferred them.
I just pooped your party.
The people that don't like the above methods of exchanging messages tend to be control freaks. They get you on the phone and command your attention in real time and at their convenience. Voicemail (or e-mail) tends to be a request (or order) to call them back.
Have gnu, will travel.
even though an often overflowing inbox has been proven to hinder productivity.
Citation needed
I sometimes ask to speak to the manager, but only because I want to tell the manager that the employee was exceptionally good. I will be happy to talk to a manager, if they ask. I expect the phone jockey to have limited power, limited info, and limited time. They can move me up the chain, if needed. I am polite, at least to them. It isn't their fault if their company screwed up.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
In my experience, I find the only effective way of solving any problem I have with a Telecoms company is to write a strongly-worded factual account of previous support failures and snail-mail it to the CEO.
We're not far from a century and a half of telephone service. How good's the mike and speaker on your expen$$ive phone?
I only really use the phone if I want to give quick information/directions otherwise I want it all in Email and messaging since it's in writing and the user don't have to waste time repeating the same info, etc. Also it is much more easier to organize email/messaging than a phone inbox