Overusing the different ways of leaving messages
20 Jul
Many moons ago, people used to leave short, discrete messages on answering machines. The message used to state the name of the person calling and the reason they called. People were confused and shy about this new technology, thus not leaving long speeches in their messages. Slowly, answering machines became more popular and people started leaving longer messages, stating the reason they called along with any other unrelated thoughts they might have had on their minds. It was all right, since checking the answering machine at home was supposedly the only way to know that someone had contacted you, and it costed nothing. The same way people were excited about leaving messages on answering machines was the same way people were excited listening to their answering machines. Just like answering machines, new advances in technology allowed for better levels of communication, and these communication channels were also respected in the beginning, and then overused.
After the trend of leaving long messages came the practise of calling people repeatedly, leaving multiple messages in a day. It was as if one was making sure that the messages left were not disappearing by themselves. Then came cell phones: people started leaving short messages in the beginning, treating cell phones with respect. Then suddenly, at a much faster rate than home phones, people started leaving long messages on cell phones, even though people knew that checking voice messages on cell phones cost money most of the time. As the idea of leaving cell phone messages started becoming the norm, text messages came along to let people send text messages to each other. Text messages became the new norm, with some people sending more text messages every day than the number of people they had in their address book.
Now, it seems that many people are turning to the likes of Skype and Yahoo Messenger Voice Mail, among other online messengers, to leave messages. Many people are treating such protocols as being the accepted norm. Someone recently emailed me saying “I left a voice message on your Yahoo messenger last week and you never called back“, which is interesting. I’ve not used Yahoo Messenger for voice messages for a long time, and I have not yet considered it an official platform to relay important messages. Similarly, people tell me “Oh, didn’t you get my message with the new meeting time? I left it on your AIM this morning.” I leave my computer on most of the time, even when I leave the house. Thus, many messages I read for the first time are already around 24 hours old. For some reason many people cannot leave their homes without a cell phone, yet they also do not use it to make important phone calls.
Long time ago, people used to be wary of embracing anything new. Nowadays, many people embrace any new piece of technology as if their life depends on it. While I love the idea of trying something new in nontraditional ways, I’m wary of people who try new things without knowing how to use those things. Many people never try to learn how to use something efficiently either. Instant messaging is great, though if alternate channels like cell phones are available, instant messaging is still not the platform to use if one wishes to convey something extremely important, like changing a meeting time at the last minute, letting an employee go in your company, or even like breaking up with someone, though one day such things will be commonly practised online. Any new technology should be used to gain efficiency for everyone involved in the beginning, not just the user. If one uses a piece of technology to their own benefit, and that results in inconvenience for others around them, the only end result will be short term convenience for the user and long term alienation from other people. Just because something can be done doesn’t mean it should be done. That is what defines common sense among many people, and that is what many people forget: common sense applies to everything, including the use of technology.
What is your opinion on this? What do you think about the different methods and channels described above? Do you use any channel of communication extensively and consider it the norm? Do you have any opinion on which channel could be improved or used more, or which ones are being misused? If so, please let me know.
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I perfectly agree with you on your opinion about acceptance of new technology.
As for as my opinion is concerned, Voice mail is an absolute flop in India. No body, let me stress on that, NO BODY, NOT EVEN CORPORATES use voice mail systems.
Mostly, if there is any important information to be conveyed I personally call them up or relay it through somebody. No SMS or Voice mail or eMail system work here.
It has been ages since I’ve been here!
I agree with you; I can’t stand it when people give important details via computer messages. The only way someone should ever contact me about a change is through SMS or my phone’s voice mail, and I’m pretty blunt about it to people if we make plans. It’s the only way I can really know about the change in plans, since I almost always have my handy (mobile/cell phone) on me and I don’t always go on the computer to religiously check for messages.
It’s terrible though, especially when people who are conducting business and are supposed to remain professional use messengers, and the fact that I can say some so-called professionals do that…
Sawaii — > That’s interesting. Is that very reliable?
Lara — > Yes, people are supposed to remain professional, and even if it’s an informal chat, common sense is supposed to be there.
I find that with my mobile phone answering service many people and many companies for that matter tend not to leave messages lately. The always seem to ring back at a later date rather than leave a message so I know why they rang in the first place! Most of my friends prefer to contact me via email or some similar digital technology.
Voice to email feature converts a voicemail into a file and forwards it to your personal email ID or whichever email ID you instruct. It can also send the voicemail to numerous emails ID’s if required. Voice to email feature can be cost effective in many ways.
1)It saves a company from the loss of a potential customer. Sometimes it becomes impossible to attend all inbound calls and that is where voicemail saves a company from a loss. Voice message is delivered long with the caller ID number of the customer which can be useful when callers forget to leave their telephone numbers.
2)Companies can save cost by delivering a particular category of calls to voicemail and save on the costs of a staff. For example, all order related calls are delivered to voicemail where caller can record his requirements. At the end of the day you can check all voicemails and prepare to dispatch the order at once.
3)Voicemail transferred to your email ID can save employees and thereby the company a lot of expenditure as voice mails can be accessed from anywhere and there is no need to visit office all the time.