A recent article by Michael Arrington on TechCrunch made me stop to think about my own approach and attitude towards voicemail, the long time King of office communication.
The article’s premise is that voicemail is inefficient, out of favor, andhas been downright abandoned by some folks.
Typical voicemail messages today include things like “Please don’t leave me a voicemail, I rarely listen to them. Please just email me at xxxx@xxxx.com” Many people don’t bother setting up their voicemail accounts at all. Then there’s my favorite method, the one I use personally - let the message box get full and then don’t empty it. Caller ID still tells me who called, and I can simply call them back.
How many times have you called someone back and said “I saw that you called but didn’t listen to the voicemail yet, Is it anything urgent?”
I notice that I rely on voicemail much less too. In fact, I prefer to not use it unless in required to. There are simply too many better alternatives. E-mail, Text Message/SMS, Twitter, or Instant Message. Text Messaging has become the defacto standard for team communication in my organization. It’s pretty common to receive messages from team members throughout the day, in and out of meetings, and even during the same meeting (ala the Twitter backchannel at conferences).
Why? Because it’s a heck of a lot faster for me to read a message than muddle my way through an ancient enterprise voicemail system until I am able to retreive the desired voicemail. Besides, abandoning voicemail means one less password to remember and constantly change due to forced password rotation policies.
Are you still using voicemail as an everday business tool or has something replaced it? If so, what?
9 responses so far ↓
1 Shannon Paul // Jul 8, 2008 at 2:18 pm
Ugh. I hate voice mail! I hate leaving them and listening to them.
It takes too much time to go through too many long-winded messages that leave the crucial call-back information at the end.
Between caller-id and text messages, voice mail seems redundant on both ends. Plus, if you need to reach someone who’s in a meeting, they can quickly text back an answer to a question without interrupting the flow of business. This is impossible with voice mail.
I can’t wait for voice mail to go away.
2 Danny // Jul 8, 2008 at 2:54 pm
Just this very day, got a VM, listened to 5 seconds and just ran over to see the person and talk about the concern. Even changing floors and finding the person in question, that was more effective than listening to the whole VM! (somepeople use VM like they are dictatating a novella to their ghostwriter…)
3 Brent Hoover // Jul 30, 2008 at 8:31 am
Problem is that not everybody is at the same level of adoption. And I have begun to hate IM in favor of going back to the phone call, but leaving VM is an inferior substitute. I think some sort of “phone call scheduling” app that would set a window of time to talk and then monitor when both parties are ready and notify them in realtime (or just connect them if that what’s they select). Um, I just patented that idea so back off.
4 Brad Shorr // Aug 13, 2008 at 8:57 am
I use voice mail reluctantly, only when clients favor phone over digital communication. Shannon stated my feelings about VM perfectly. Political candidates around here (Chicago, IL) have developed a habit of leaving ridiculously long VM campaign messages, more than one a day as the election nears. They must be trying to lose votes!
5 cathy healey // Sep 10, 2008 at 4:21 pm
It depends on the person. Some people respond to VM more than email and vice versa. I am finding more often that facebook or twitter are more effective for connecting with people. I’m getting to like facebook because the conversations are organized by each person. I’m gettign to hate email. The only thing email is good for is telling me someone sent me a facebook or ning message.
6 Albert Maruggi // Sep 14, 2008 at 8:56 am
Don’t be divisive, save that for politics. No need to take sides on VM vs text.
Ok just being a wiseguy, but to each their own. There are services that turn voice mail into text messages if the recipient would rather get a text.
One can make the case that voice mails are eaiser to compartmentalize and therefore better for the recipient to manage their time.
How about this idea. Voice is a richer medium and in some states (like MN where driving and texting is against the law) more productive because it is a passive medium (I can multitask asier with audio).
Perhaps services like http://www.utterz.com voice allows you to be more detailed, instead of “hey call me back” you can leave a longer piece of information. Yeah, now you’re talking. That is usually easier to compose longer messages with voice than text.
Surely we’ll see how different formats will be used now that we have unlimited storage bandwidth and the capacity to deliver/receive it anywhere.
cool post
7 Derek Loyer // Oct 14, 2008 at 11:06 am
I never use voice mail. I check it maybe once a week. I use my missed calls as a “who i need to call back” list and use text messages from those people if it is important.
When I call people back and they ask me “did you listen to my voice mail” it is frustrating, NO i didn’t listen to your voice mail I called you back instead tell me what you want.
8 A. J. Mahler // Oct 30, 2008 at 6:44 am
I am ambivilent on voicemail. Sometimes I like it other times I wish it would go away.
One solution is to use a system like Asterisk. Your voicemail can be sent to you via email as an audio file. At least your message stream is unified somewhat.
No voicemail, no tag! Voicemail isn’t a conversation, it usually is used as a means to get your attention. It is usueful when someone is leaving you the information you needed.
Your right about callerid doing the job of getting your attention!
9 kburbary // Oct 30, 2008 at 8:48 am
@A.J. Thanks for the comments. You’re right, a Digital telephony system does make it much better. We have one here and I receive all voicemail messages in my email as an audio file. All I need to do is click play and listen. I haven’t actually logged into the phone system via a telephone handset in 2 months. In the land of voicemail systems, it’s pure heaven. That sad, my feelings overall on VM usage haven’t changed. I prefer text, IM, Twitter or other forms of messaging.
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