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Saturday, September 19, 2009

Email vs Phone

Okay, so in today's world, when texting is a major part of people's lives, why do some people/companies still insist on using the phone? If they have a website, with an email contact, then they should be able to respond to a question via email . . . shouldn't they? It drives me nuts when I email a company with a simple question and I get an email response to call them. Why? If they can take a few moments to type in the words, "call us at this number to discuss your concerns", then they should be able to type in a direct response to an inquiry.

I can understand if it's something private or secure (such as giving account numbers etc.). Then the phone is probably a better choice.

What if you register with an organization via their website and all communication is done via email, then suddenly you have a request and their response is to ask for your phone number. Why can't they respond via email then too?

Yes, as you can probably tell, I don't like doing business over the phone, especially when it can be done via email or online chat. Of course, it doesn't help when you call customer service and they put a person with a deep foreign accent on the other end so that you can't understand a word anyway.

I realize for a lot of people, it's easier to talk than to type, but then I have to ask again, why have a contact email if they really don't want to respond via email?

I do like, however, some places that ask whether you want to be contacted via email or phone. At least they give you an option to choose and don't just demand you call them or ask for your phone number to respond.

What do you think -- phone vs email for simple stuff?

Additional rant:

Okay, so I wanted to downgrade my home phone service. You can't do it online. You have to call the idiots. I call and am put on hold, and then I speak to one girl. She says she can't do it so she has to transfer me to someone who can. I wait on hold for a few minutes longer and get a second girl. She wastes about ten minutes of my time until she says she can't do it either. She has to transfer me to yet another person. I wait on hold for awhile this time and I get to the third person, who the bloody hell can't hear me and I can barely hear her! So I end up hanging up and not getting my issue resolved, after wasting a good half an hour on the phone (when it could have been fixed with a simple ten second email request). What's so great about the darn phone? I don't have time to wait on hold and be transferred around. That's ridiculous.