Communicating in These Complex Times: Does Texting Trump the Phone?
Written July 25th, 2007 by Judy StokesI recently had an experience that revealed to me that we don’t know how to communicate these days. A co-worker was late for a meeting. Knowing he was coming from another office and might be trying to communicate with me (as I sat in a meeting room), I went back to my desk and fetched my Blackberry.
The Blackberry had no e-mail communication from him, and only a strangely blank voice mail message from an unknown number. I sat and waited.
When my colleague showed up, he said, “I tried to reach you! I called several times.”
Here were two sincere people, trying to transfer information. What went wrong?
I had expected an e-mail message (or on a Blackberry, would you call a short e-mail a “text message?”) Lacking that, I expected a spoken voice message, telling me his fate.
My colleague, a former phone company employee, thought he would communicate by phone, calling all my numbers and then “paging” me by leaving his number on my phone.
It didn’t work!
The situation caused my colleagues in the meeting to review the various ways we have decided to do our primary communication – given that there are now so many, many options. Where do you look for “urgent” messages? Does the phone trump your e-mail?
Or do you rely on those keyboards – computer, Blackberry, cell phone – to send out your silent communications all day, rarely using your voice?
Because I work in two locations, I have the unfortunate situation of having five possible phone numbers to reach me: home, personal cell, Blackberry, office 1, office 2. Given the absurdity of staying on top of all those phones, I tend to rely on e-mail. In fact, my office voice mail says, “If you want to reach me urgently, try sending an e-mail.” Having my computer and/or Blackberry ever present, I can quickly read a message and respond from anywhere, and prefer that.
However, there are certainly those who believe phones are still the primary means – like my friend, trying vainly to communicate, voice to voice.
Which method have you adopted?
And given that our customers must also fall all over this spectrum, from IM’ing 20-somethings to “I’ll leave this earth without a computer” seniors, how do we plan to provide the best communications into and out of our organizations?
Know anyone who has abandoned a home phone/landline to rely only on their cell? (I know many).
How will our large-screen websites begin to evolve to serve those who carry their Internet connection around in their pockets or pocketbooks?
And given the recent introduction of the iPhone, has the discussion taken another turn? Perhaps the next stage of technology will merge all forms back into one. Until then, I guess we just do our best.
July 25th, 2007 at 8:11 am
We’re creating versions of our web site for use on handheld devices. That’s step one. It’s a much slimmed down version to make it easy for people to find the kinds of things they would look for using a handheld. Such as phone numbers, addresses, appointment info, etc.
The communication issue is a different one altogether, and one that perplexes me still. I don’t carry either a pager nor do I access my email from a handheld device. Maybe I should. But I do check voicemail frequently when I’m not in the office, and email is accessible from anywhere I can access the Internet. And my admin has my cell and home phone numbers. Maybe I’m a knuckle-dragging, mouth-breathing troglodite, but I’ve yet to encounter a situation where I wasn’t reachable quickly enough.
July 25th, 2007 at 8:34 am
“If you want me soon, call my cell and leave a message,” I tell everyone (I routinely screen calls from numbers I don’t recognize). But for normal communication, I prefer e-mails. I can always access them whether it’s in the office, at home, or on my Treo.
It is frustrating for me that some people absolutely refuse to communicate on anything other than a phone or in person. But I’m sure it’s equally frustrating for them when I e-mail them back. But my reasoning is that, as a tech guy, e-mails provide a history of discussion that is plainly laid out and there’s more than ample room for details that I can go over as many times as I wish. If it’s on the phone or in person, I either scramble to write notes, perhaps leaving something out, or perhaps they will leave out an important detail. I’d much rather a very long, detailed e-mail than a short face-to-face meeting that doesn’t get anything done and has to be followed up with x number of phone calls or more face-to-face meetings.
So that is an interesting point: my clients want one thing while I would rather another. To me, and I’m hard-headed, I see it as preference vs. requirement. They see a meeting as a preference while I see a detailed e-mail as a requirement. So of course I win! But often that’s not the case.
As for the site itself, we don’t have any explicit plans to make it more accessible by PDAs or cells, but if it came as a cost-efficient part of a redesign, we’d probably consider it. But I’d say that well over 95% of the content of our site is more commonly going to be looked at with a regular computer rather than a PDA or cell (where maybe phone numbers, addresses, perhaps a map will be read).
July 31st, 2007 at 3:00 pm
Great topic, Judy. I’m reminded of Rob Curly’s presentation at last years Healthcare Internet Conference. He said, “If we could beam it to your (expletive), we would.” (not sure if leaving the expletive in makes me look sillier than taking it out, but, nonetheless, it did make me remember the quote)
I think the point is valid. We have to constantly monitor what people are doing and communicate with them in that manner. Things come and things go. When’s the last time you sent a fax? Broadband penetration has changed Web content (I remember when all pages had to be less than 50k). I think mobile connections will change a lot of what we do. It might not be time yet, but I think providing some level of mobile information, like what Neal is doing, is called for. I read too many new stats about mobile Web penetration, and, frankly, it hits home when you’re at a restaurant and you see people all around you accessing something on their smart phones.
Oh, and people who leave voicemails for something that needs to be done are missing something. And I don’t think it’s a “camp” type thing. But if you need me to do something, you need to get on my list. And my “list” is my In box. Again, I don’t say this because I’m in a certain camp. I think we’ll see that certain communication devices are better for certain things. There will end up being unwritten rules that people will apply. For example, I’ll never text my boss: Sick 2day. CUl8r. Thx. (though I might want to)