What service are you running where the "overwhelming number of [y]our users" tell you that phone is their preferred method of contact?
As I wrote on the blog, email allows me to:
- respond when it’s convenient for me.
- keep most of my attention on what I’m doing.
- archive and share the correspondence easily.
- filter content I don’t want to hear anymore.
- remain anonymous.
- make careful, researched, edited responses.
- include screenshots, links to videos, and other files which might be helpful.
- continue to correspond if I loose my hearing and/or speaking abilities.
I’m not hearing impaired, and I much prefer email. Phone calls are only acceptable in a small number of situations, and I want to be the person to decide when those situations occur.
I generally prefer phone contact. Not because I actually prefer talking on the phone, but because of how different most companies treat email and phone contact.
When you talk on the phone, you have someone who's listening to you right now, and if they misunderstand you, you can re-explain. If they continue to be unhelpful, you can talk to a supervisor.
Email, on the other hand, seems to go into a queue, which is responded to with one of a variety of boilerplate responses, most of which aren't really quite to the point. Yeah, I can respond when it's convenient to me, but so can they, causing a simple misunderstanding to require multiple round trips of idiocy lasting several days.
Phone calls make sure I waste my time trying to get your attention via low-paid level one staff who have minimal training and who possibly hate me and all other customers; until I give up navigating your awful phone-menu system and getting misunderstood by aforementioned staff and being put on hold for hours
No, but it doesn't cost me money to send an email. I'm in the UK. We tend to have to pay to call companies. Where a company has a "freephone" number that's only free from landlines (and possibly a small number of mobile tariffs) - anyone calling from a mobile will have to pay lots.
The combination of poor customer service, and not getting the problem resolved, and having to pay for it, is horrible.
I'm sorry, I didn't catch that, I was (driving|reading a website|talking with a co-worker|playing a game|watching a video|doodling|handing the phone to my baby).
I feel like I must be one of the only people on HN who doesn't mind a phone call. Yes, admittedly, I am not hearing impaired, and I do understand the desire to pick your preferred method of communication, but a lot of times it can take me 30 seconds to solidify something in a phone call that could take 4-5 texts or chat messages, especially if you are trying to actually make plans with someone.
Yeah, for a lot if cases it's harder to explain things over the phone. Also you might get someone who doesn't know the answer and you need to explain it again to the next person. Add to that I'd rather my email sit in a queue that stay on hold on the phone.
Our customers are other businesses, but not focused on the technology field (electronic purchasing, actually), so your mileage may vary. I'm certain that if our target customer were tech-focused, that far more would prefer email, but that's just not the case for us.
I fully recognize the benefits of asynchronous communication, but I'm not out to educate my customers on the best way to communicate. I'm here to respond to them in whatever way they prefer. You'll be happy to hear that we let them choose the preferred method.
I'm much like you. For the most part, I prefer email, especially with a new client/potential client, because I hate being caught off guard in those first moments. It's often easier to explain things in writing. I can edit before clicking "send" and it gives me a written record of whatever it is we've been talking about without having to take notes.
That said, I also quite frequently run into situations where multiple emails or IM conversations that go nowhere could be easily solved by a quick phone call. But this generally happens when I'm working on a project with someone, rather than simply passing along information.
I prefer email for general correspondence, but if I'm looking to do some brainstorming and collaborative problem-solving, or to do a quick review of some code/layout/functionality nothing beats a phone call. It's more engaging and more fast-paced for quickly exchanging and discussing ideas than email or even IM.
I prefer phone for urgent and important matters like bank transactions , for others i prefer email, i can think before replying to them , it will help both parties ,if the email is framed properly, there will be no need for further converstions. But yeah reply does take time , it would be good if we include a php script that lets us know if they had opened our mail or not.
And for physically impaired people , there must be an option for SMS , as he said it is 2011 and technology helps :)
As I wrote on the blog, email allows me to:
I’m not hearing impaired, and I much prefer email. Phone calls are only acceptable in a small number of situations, and I want to be the person to decide when those situations occur.