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Duane D. Stanford reports at Bloomberg that Coca-Cola's Atlanta Headquarters is the latest big campany to ditch its old-style voice mail, which requires users to push buttons to scroll through messages and listen to them one at a time. The change went into effect this month, and a standard outgoing message now throws up an electronic stiff arm, telling callers to try later or use “an alternative method” to contact the person. Techies have predicted the death of voice mail for years as smartphones co-opt much of the office work once performed by telephones and desktop computers. Younger employees who came of age texting while largely ignoring voice mail are bringing that habit into the workforce. “People north of 40 are schizophrenic about voice mail,” says Michael Schrage. “People under 35 scarcely ever use it.” Companies are increasingly combining telephone, e-mail, text and video systems into unified Internet-based systems that eliminate overlap. “Many people in many corporations simply don’t have the time or desire to spend 25 minutes plowing through a stack of 15 to 25 voice mails at the end or beginning of the day,” says Schrage, In 2012, Vonage reported its year-over-year voicemail volumes dropped 8%. More revealing, the number of people bothering to retrieve those messages plummeted 14%. More and more personal and corporate voicemail boxes now warn callers that their messages are rarely retrieved and that they’re better off sending emails or texts. "The truly productive have effectively abandoned voicemail, preferring to visually track who’s called them on their mobiles," concludes Schrage. "A communications medium that was once essential has become as clunky and irrelevant as Microsoft DOS and carbon paper."
(Score: 2) by dyingtolive on Wednesday December 24 2014, @12:54PM
My friends and colleagues all get and respond to email. Some of them will also use Google Hangouts. I know they use the fad social media stuff too, but we all communicate that way unless it's an emergency. The simple presence of a phone call is a symbol it's important. No one leaves me a voice mail, because I'm going to call back immediately so that I know what the situation is and how it's changed since god knows when the voice mail actually happened.
My parents use email, but prefer phone calls. I oblige them, but as a rule both sides keep it on speakerphone or earpieces so that we can keep working on whatever we were doing prior to the interruption. I love them, but I'm not about to stop soldering to hold a cinderblock with a speaker in it up to my ear to chat.
Don't blame me, I voted for moose wang!
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Wednesday December 24 2014, @06:52PM
I'm one of the few who aren't mobile (phone-wise): i looove email. I can ignore it if i want to, respond when i want, delete without even looking at it, spam the garbage.
I am also not a 'talk on the phone' kind of person: i hate trying to make conversation, or having to listen to boring people who just talk to hear themselves (although, sometimes its a laugh, some of the things that come out of the idiots mouths because they are talking without thinking).
I send quick emails to say what i want/need to say and i am done.
Love it.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---