Let’s abolish voicemail, who’s coming with me?
I feel like Jerry Maguire when he’s leaving the firm for the last time:
I really despise voicemail. It’s a huge hassle and there are better ways to leave someone a message these days. In lieu of just deleting voicemail altogether (that seems kind of harsh), I just changed my voicemail to this:
Hi, sorry I missed your call. Unfortunately, I don’t check voicemail that often so the best way to leave me a message would be either to text me at this number or send an email to me.
And to do my part, I’m not going to leave anyone voicemails any more. If I get their voicemail, I’ll hang up and send them a text.
So…who’s coming with me?
What about people who are not going to text you, like doctors’ offices, etc?
Love this idea, but I don’t like getting texts for business purposes. So, I might have to modify a bit…
I’m in, but what’s the protocol if someone calls but doesn’t leave a voicemail, text, or email. Don’t call them back because it’s obviously not that important? What if it’s so important that they didn’t even have time to leave a message?
I’m 100% with you. I tried that a year ago, but amazingly (or not?) people kept leaving me voice mails. So then I moved my # to Google Voice. Now when somebody leaves me a voice mail I get an immediate email from GV with the text transcription (and audio attachment). Admittedly the transcription can be lousy, but its usually enough for me to know what the call was about. Worst case I listen to the attachment. Haven’t checked my actual vm in a year and nobody’s the wiser. Hallelujah.
Voice mail does have useful purposes. I blogged my thoughts on this two weeks ago. https://merchantstand.com/2015/01/a-case-for-voice-mail/
I agree that the use of voice mail is decreasing. But it still has purpose and shouldn’t mask bad habits that we develop with electronic communications. Email threads a mile long are counter productive to my time. Instant message threads a mile long could be accomplished in a fraction of the time with a phone call. Text messages can stray from the point and be counter productive to time usage.
Like receiving a hand-written note, a voicemail is more personal. If you need to express tone and not worry about misrepresentation of meaning then visit the person or call them.
I encourage this by rarely leaving any on my own. Several of my friends have taken the hint without requiring me to spell it out…
[…] wrong with texting, so please don’t get me wrong. I’m so very much in agreement with Jeff Hilimire that voice mail should die a rapid death. However, whether you’re a back end Java developer or a social marketer or the leader of your […]
Been doing this for a while. I generally call when I think a conversation would be better then email. If I get voice mail I hang up and send a real brief message that I called, the reason for it, and that I would like to speak with them at their convenience. Seems to work.
[…] wrong with texting, so please don’t get me wrong. I’m so very much in agreement with Jeff Hilimire that voice mail should die a rapid death. However, whether you’re a back end Java developer or a social marketer or the leader of your […]