Rant about businesses using email!

[Unseul]

Sorry, need somewhere to rant, and wanted to do it somewhere that I may actually get a sensible response as to why.

My phone has terrible reception at home, so I nearly always ask businesses to email me, rather than try and call. Most are fine with this, and we handle things over email (moving house at the moment, so plenty of estate agents etc).

Some are seemingly stupid though. And when they do email, it's to ask me to call them for a chat etc. Sometimes just to let me know something that could have been in the email to start with!

The latest one is a kitchen design company, the designer emailed me asking me to call before our meeting (tomorrow), so I just have (fiddling about for 5 minutes getting signal). I actually spoke to someone else, who'd had a message passed on by the designer as he was with other clients. All they wanted was our address. What the hell. Why did I have to bugger about calling them, why did the other employee have to be involved at all (chinese whispers effect etc that can cause issues), why not just send the email asking for that!

 

[Deleted member 77746]

It's funny you mention this. I'm just dealing with something about communication this morning. The problem we have this day and age is there is that many ways to communicate now sometimes it's hard to keep up. In a business it makes it even harder but I suppose people have to have certain ways to communicate.

Phone calls, SMS, What's App/Telegram (etc), Email, Social Media just far too many.

 

[MarkeR]

Use wifi calling, problem solved!

 

[VincentHanna]

Why not use Wifi calling that is available on most Android and Apple phones?

Edit - Beaten to it

 

[Glanza]

Some prefer phone as it leaves less of a paper trail if anything goes wrong down the line.

 

[Hades]

Some prefer phone as it leaves less of a paper trail if anything goes wrong down the line.

Bingo.

 

[VincentHanna]

Some prefer phone as it leaves less of a paper trail if anything goes wrong down the line.

Perhaps for some unscrupulous companies

As somebody who runs a business and primarily uses email, but also has a phone line - often it's quicker to get an answer by calling somebody rather than hoping they have seen your email.

And away from the business side of things, when moving house I did mainly deal with my mortgage broker and solicitor on email, but occasionally you need to make a connection with these people and get them fighting for you. I wanted to get a house purchase done by June 30th to avoid stamp duty and without phone calls it wouldn't have happened.

 

[Mysterae_]

Some prefer phone as it leaves less of a paper trail if anything goes wrong down the line.

Which is why in my long stint in management I'd always follow up those types of conversations with an email. "Just to confirm your directive to not pay attention to that thing that we really should be paying attention to." kind of email. An email has a longer memory than a lot of managers.

 

[Rroff]

I've found solicitors terrible for this, emailing/texting to arrange a call which turns out to be for information which there was no reason couldn't have been done via email and often just seems to be so they don't have to dig in the information they already have to find it.

As I often work nights at the moment it drives me up the wall sometimes.

 

[b0rn2sk8]

I often find the opposite to be the case, businesses often hide behind emails to avoid speaking directly to customer, particularly if they have messed up.

 

[Deleted member 651465]

I've found solicitors terrible for this, emailing/texting to arrange a call which turns out to be for information which there was no reason couldn't have been done via email and often just seems to be so they don't have to dig in the information they already have to find it.

As I often work nights at the moment it drives me up the wall sometimes.

If they need to write you a letter, requesting information... they'll be charging you.

Why call when they can rinse you by sending needless letters?*

*Plot twist - they'll sting you in admin fees for the phone calls anyway

 

[SpeedFreak]

WiFi calling or get a landline. From a business perspective what can be explained in one minute on the phone takes 5 minutes or more to ready in an email so I can understand their issue in some cases.

 

[Unseul]

Perhaps for some unscrupulous companies

As somebody who runs a business and primarily uses email, but also has a phone line - often it's quicker to get an answer by calling somebody rather than hoping they have seen your email.

And away from the business side of things, when moving house I did mainly deal with my mortgage broker and solicitor on email, but occasionally you need to make a connection with these people and get them fighting for you. I wanted to get a house purchase done by June 30th to avoid stamp duty and without phone calls it wouldn't have happened.

When that email is just a request to call them though! For a simple detail.

I get that some things are better done over the phone, no problem, but when it's a straight forward simple question then just ask in the damn email!

 

[arknor]

I often find the opposite to be the case, businesses often hide behind emails to avoid speaking directly to customer, particularly if they have messed up.

isnt there a word for that type of behaviour?


there's a thing where you send out a wrong order knowing the order is wrong in an attempt to buy time.

because it's easier than saying "can't do it for a week" and the customer would likely go elsewhere in that time.

I'm sure there's a word for that too, I can't remember what industry it was supposed to be most prevalent in, probably building or construction.


it was part of a docu or something I was watching, I was amazed it's apparently a real tactic

 

[roccles]

Some prefer phone as it leaves less of a paper trail if anything goes wrong down the line.

When I last moved house my solicitor would always reply to emails with a new email and an empty subject meaning that it was always a challenge to piece together an email conversation.

I always wondered if this was to reduce a paper trail or due to lack of computer/email knowledge