I used to work at a company that had an office phone system with desk phones and all. To this day I consider that kind of system a most confusing piece of technology I tried to use.
Coca-Cola Disconnects Voice Mail at Headquarters
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Re: Coca-Cola Disconnects Voice Mail at Headquarters
#72I'm a bit bemused by all of the voicemail hate on here. I'm 42, so I feel I'm in the area between those that hate phone calls (younger, in general) and those that hate texting (older, in general). I enjoy being reachable by people (family, clients, employees, etc.) and I don't want them to have an obstacle to sending me a message. Certainly voicemail is an annoyance but it's also often the best option. Just last nigh…
I haven't listened to my voicemail in probably two years. In the age of caller ID, what's the point ? I can see that you called me, and call back.
CLID is trivially spoofed; indeed there are CRM vendors that will do that for your sales force.
Telco should fix CLID.
Re: Coca-Cola Disconnects Voice Mail at Headquarters
#73I'm old enough that I've lived through these stages:
1) There were no answering machines and no cordless phones, much less mobile. If you called someone at home, and they didn't answer, you just tried later. If you called someone at a business, everyone had a secretary who could pick up if they didn't answer. She (and it was always "she") would write your message on a message slip (they were generally pink) and put it on the person's desk. Or, for smaller businesses, you called the main number, and the operator would connect you, and take a message if no answer.
2) Home answering machines happened. They used cassette tapes, and you could rewind and replay your messages. The outgoing greeting was on a second tape. When you got home, or if you were screening your calls, you'd see a blinking light indicating "new message", then hit buttons to rewind and play your messages. When the tape got full you could put in a new tape or write over the old messages. For businesses, phone systems became smarter and could take voicemail, but this was expensive, many businesses still used the old people-intensive way for messages, and many businesses preferred this because customers liked talking to a real person to leave a message.
3) Mobile phones with SMS became available to consumers. (We are into the 90s now). I don't recall this being especially popular at first, most people still left voicemails, even on mobile phones. But SMS became more and more used over the next decade plus (before smartphones when they exploded in popularity).
4) Fast forward to today. People born after 1980 or so, I find, really don't do voicemail at all, text messaging is the thing. If you leave them a voicemail, it doesn't get listened to. The best you can expect is a callback or a text message because they saw you called, but the usual response is nothing. For businesses, some form of instant messaging (IM) is prevalent inside the company. The IM might say "Hey do you have a minute to talk OTP?" but no one just calls someone else cold, much less leaves a voicemail and expects a response.
IMO stage (1) actually worked fine, and now that we are at stage (4) that works fine too (as long as you don't pretend voicemail is a thing and use other means of communication). The intermediate stages were awkward at best.
I think Coca-Cola's action makes a ton of sense for any company. Maybe it was fear of legal discovery that prompted it, maybe it was what they said (streamlining operations), but it is a good thing, IMO.
Re: Coca-Cola Disconnects Voice Mail at Headquarters
#74I'm a bit bemused by all of the voicemail hate on here. I'm 42, so I feel I'm in the area between those that hate phone calls (younger, in general) and those that hate texting (older, in general). I enjoy being reachable by people (family, clients, employees, etc.) and I don't want them to have an obstacle to sending me a message. Certainly voicemail is an annoyance but it's also often the best option. Just last nigh…
When I have other ways to contact someone, I feel like leaving a voicemail is slightly inconsiderate, as it is the mode of asynchronous communication that requires the most effort from the receiver. It's much easier for them to see that they have a missed call from me, or see a text message to see what the call was about, or to read a quick email rather than listen to a voicemail.
There's nothing inconsiderate about it. I'm not returning calls from the numbers I don't know, unless they leave a VM. Since there's visual VM, it's easy to delete VMs mid-sentence too, so I don't have to sit through the sales message either.
Re: Coca-Cola Disconnects Voice Mail at Headquarters
#75I used to work at a company that had an office phone system with desk phones and all. To this day I consider that kind of system a most confusing piece of technology I tried to use.
Not yet worked anywhere that doesnt... although I almost never use said phones.
Re: Coca-Cola Disconnects Voice Mail at Headquarters
#76Earlier quoted context omitted.
Anxiety? Maybe. But possibly just annoyance ?
I'm sure it's both. For me, I've never liked how interruptive and demanding phone calls are. I would never barge into somebody's home and immediately insist on attention no matter what they were doing. But ringing phones are like that. So I definitely notice some politeness-related anxiety when I call people. I also notice a little bit of stage fright with both phone calls and voicemails. Phones rob you of almost all…
Right, re: demanding/interrupting. That's the main thing I hate about cell phones; people expect you to be on-call at all times and express anger when you aren't; the only excuse being that I was driving or didnt hear it. When in reality I just didnt feel like answering the phone and talking.
Re: Coca-Cola Disconnects Voice Mail at Headquarters
#77Why wouldn't you want to give your customers every opportunity available to get in touch with you?
Do you have a fax machine and a telex?
Re: Coca-Cola Disconnects Voice Mail at Headquarters
#78I'm a bit bemused by all of the voicemail hate on here. I'm 42, so I feel I'm in the area between those that hate phone calls (younger, in general) and those that hate texting (older, in general). I enjoy being reachable by people (family, clients, employees, etc.) and I don't want them to have an obstacle to sending me a message. Certainly voicemail is an annoyance but it's also often the best option. Just last nigh…
I haven't listened to my voicemail in probably two years. In the age of caller ID, what's the point ? I can see that you called me, and call back.
Many people refuse to call back numbers that are unknown to them. Others (myself) tend not to call back on a missed call without a voicemail or a text. I assume if you just call and leave no message, you'll reach out to me another way or it was just asking what was up.
Re: Coca-Cola Disconnects Voice Mail at Headquarters
#79I think the main problem with voicemail is that, for the most part, it is disconnected from the Internet.
We run Asterisk, when I get a voicemail it is as an mp3 in my email. I know the caller ID, when it was left and how long it is before I choose to listen to it.
It is totally useful.
It has always boggled me that I can't choose "send audio message" from my smart phone's contacts without a third party app - a feature that I use on watsapp regularly.
Re: Coca-Cola Disconnects Voice Mail at Headquarters
#80I'm a bit bemused by all of the voicemail hate on here. I'm 42, so I feel I'm in the area between those that hate phone calls (younger, in general) and those that hate texting (older, in general). I enjoy being reachable by people (family, clients, employees, etc.) and I don't want them to have an obstacle to sending me a message. Certainly voicemail is an annoyance but it's also often the best option. Just last nigh…
I'm 43 and I hate voicemail. It just takes so long to get the information. Dial a number, wait for connection, press more buttons, find a pen and paper to write down any important bits of the message etc.
Just send me the info in written form.