I cannot read the article due to the paywall, but just to vent.....one painful phone pet peeve for me that's declined recently is the art of people leaving a useful voice mail.
Ok, I get it. There's a few technically-challenged people that struggle with emails and texts and prefer to use their voice. I'm perfectly happy to deal with that.
But they call and leave a voice mail that focuses on the wrong information. They'll agonizingly slowly spell out their first and last name (D-as-in-dog, E-as-in-elephant, etc) and phone number (even though any digital system provides that already) but not even mention what they're calling for.
What should be a 15 second voice mail like "Hey Mark, this is Denise from the Jersey office. Please send Rachel in sales the paperwork for order #9485. Let me know if there's any problems with that. Thanks!" turns into a 2 minute long voicemail that is physically painful to listen to and that ignores the only necessary piece of information required and turns into an unnecessary game of phone tag.
turns into a 2 minute long voicemail that is physically painful to listen to
Not like it's any less painful on a live call. I wish I had a setting to automatically tase anyone who calls me and when I answer the first thing they want to know is what I'm doing. As if it's up to them to judge whether what I'm doing is more important than whatever bullshit they've called me up for. You tell me what you need and then I will tell you if and when I can do it. Sooner or later I'm going to start answering these people honestly. "Oh, nothing much Sharon, just browsing some naked anime women."
Being forced to convey things like addresses, phone numbers, credit card numbers, etc by voice instead of text can be incredibly painful, and of course it gets worse with poor quality connections, accents, non-native languages, etc.
I almost wish there was some low-tech thing for sending text in-band in voice calls, like DTMF but for all ASCII characters, or some 75 baud protocol / tones so you could be like 'Ok, I am sending my name / email / account #. <sending> See it on your screen? great! screencap it... copy and paste it into your app now, etc!'
> and phone number (even though any digital system provides that already
Speaking of which, when I call any customer service, they ALWAYS ask for my phone number. I've been baffled by this for awhile. Why? Can't they see it?
I wonder if caller information is just unreliable enough that they always ask anyway, because even if it gives the wrong number a smallish percent of the time, that's bad enough that it's worth taking the time to ask.
My previous post was lighthearted, but I have had problems with voice-to-text in noisy cars. I suppose there’s a chance this issue be carried over to the receiver’s voice-to-text software.
I think it is because you want an acknowledgement that the recipient listened to your voicemail and will follow through. Without them calling back you will be in the dark. Also, for cases like exemplified with, email is probably better. Calling to talk is for more complex stuff that requires a conversation.
Dale Carnegie’s “How To Win Friends and Influence People” has an anecdote about him writing that as kid to some person he wanted to impress, and it predictably having the opposite effect.
When I can tell Google voice is messing up what I'm saying I'll end with dictated not read. I got it from the Simpsons. Only a few people get the joke. What's funny is I use it for important communications and people I need to respond to not than others
I use sipgate. They transcribe every voicemail into an email with mp3 attachment. That makes it easy for me to just email people a reply to their phone call.
Ok, I get it. There's a few technically-challenged people that struggle with emails and texts and prefer to use their voice. I'm perfectly happy to deal with that.
But they call and leave a voice mail that focuses on the wrong information. They'll agonizingly slowly spell out their first and last name (D-as-in-dog, E-as-in-elephant, etc) and phone number (even though any digital system provides that already) but not even mention what they're calling for.
What should be a 15 second voice mail like "Hey Mark, this is Denise from the Jersey office. Please send Rachel in sales the paperwork for order #9485. Let me know if there's any problems with that. Thanks!" turns into a 2 minute long voicemail that is physically painful to listen to and that ignores the only necessary piece of information required and turns into an unnecessary game of phone tag.