Comment by ahmadtbk
7 days ago
The nice thing about real time calls is they help avoid confusion, convey more emotion and information than most messages can.
There is less ambiguity usually during a real conversation.
Conversations tend to resolve very quickly because in the span of five minutes we can go back and forth on multiple questions, get clarity and finalize how we want continue. Some things require this but not everything. There is a balance as with everything.
I recognize your position is appropriately nuanced, so this isn't directed at you, but I hear this sort of thing almost daily and I think it's usually an incredibly lazy take.
Often we end up convinced we are on the same page when we aren't just because our communication is constrained (and accelerated) by social protocol. At least when it is written out you can go back and re-read or directly quote someone. In meetings I find myself constantly pointing out when someone has been fundamentally misunderstood in a way that aligns with the listener's existing beliefs/preferences, "oh, I think what Frank is saying might actually be the opposite of [your interpretation]?".
There are pros and cons to different forms of communication. Sometimes a call can help cut through layers of misunderstanding, but for more complex topics, often it's difficult to get a group of people to all be present enough to share genuine understanding. School is a great example of how ineffective this can be.
Of course all points are correct - and yet
> nearly half [of gen z] admit that speaking on the phone makes them feel anxious (49 per cent)
> an awkward phone call is one of the top three things they would most want to avoid (42 per cent)
That being said I'm quite confident there is enough of a market that doesn't dread talking on the phone that this company could do very well for itself and its founders financial goals.
---
https://www.commbank.com.au/articles/newsroom/2023/06/CBA-Mo...
For me, my reluctance to use the phone is that 90% of the phone calls I get are spams/scams or to put it most kindly, unsolicited. I have just developed a visceral dislike for answering phone calls. My phone is set only to ring if you're in my contacts list. Everone else goes to voicemail (I guess -- I never set it up and I never check it).
When I was young we had a landline at home and yes there were some telemarketing calls but they were not the majority. Most calls were from friends or family or legitimate other purposes. That's not how it is today, at least in my experience.
Part of it is that anything other than a local call used to cost money. So there was a financial disincentive to robo-call thousands of people hoping that you'd find one rube.
How do you handle calls from unknowns like Doctors, hospitals or clinics?
2 replies →
I wonder how this will change as it becomes more and more normal for companies to shunt you to horrible chatbots. Maybe we'll shift back to needing a real human.
This! I had to get a court order against my bank because there was an issue and all responses I got from them were not generated. Only after getting the court order did I get the attention of a human, which was their lawyer. We had a pleasant conversation, and the issue was solved.
I mean, if you need a human, you need a human. But the companies where you seem to need humans to help make it hard to reach them, by phone or in writing.
I prefer in writing, because I always hope that when it eventually gets to a human, they can read the whole conversation and save a lot of time. Using voice, almost always, I have to repeat the information to each person as we go, and it's tiresome.
Synchronous communication is sometimes effective, but when its the default it is plodding, wasteful, and an absolute minefield of anxieties and banalities for some people, myself included.
Strangely, it seems like the world is becoming more like me over time. I tend to think of my preferred communication style as strange and awkward because that's what a lifetime of experience has taught me but the new generation seems to also prefer it.
Laughing at this because last time I tried to arrange a call to get my detailed questions answered it was immediately obvious that the person I worked with had NONE of the answers and I was wasting my time.
I wasn’t even convinced there was a working product after that.
So it goes both ways.
That's not a problem of the channel(call) right? That's a problem of personnel.