And now, for the coup de grâce - I'm calling this gentlemen who left the message this morning but I keep ending up on his voice mail.
 

another thumbs up for email over phone.
I very rarely answer the phone these days and prefer to screen my calls,which some people seem to think is unacceptable.
There is nothing worse than being pressured over the phone to make a decision or committment.
With email,text or voicemail,at least you get to consider your decision or reply.
For business,email is a no-brainer-its hard to dispute the written word and has come in handy when clients "forget" what they promised.
While I am at it-what really ****s me is people who ring and leave a message to ring them back-FFS-what about???
 
that's better-nothing like a morning rant to get you going.................

Rain
And guess what? I woke up to find someone had again left a message on my voice mail in answer to an e-mail. 
 
In this case, I'd written an e-mail to ask a very, very simple question, something which could have been answer by a simple yes or no. W/o going into the details, it was as simple as asking a music store rep : "Do you sell Gibson products?"
 
The funny thing is that since I wasn't available when they called, they left me a message - not with an answer to my very, very simple question, mind you. That would have been too easy. Nah, they asked me to call back the 800 number, then press this and that and then ask a specific extension...
 

 
 

So you got called by a sales rep who was hoping to engage you in the subject of Gibson guitars and hopefully have you order one over the phone. It's 1000% easier to make a sale if you can talk to someone. I used to work in a market selling ornamental candles and we didn't have the price on anything, the idea being that customers would ask you the price and that was your opening. Whereas if you provided that info for them in the form of a sticker, they'd invariably take one look at it and walk away.

sharke

Rain
And guess what? I woke up to find someone had again left a message on my voice mail in answer to an e-mail. 
 
In this case, I'd written an e-mail to ask a very, very simple question, something which could have been answer by a simple yes or no. W/o going into the details, it was as simple as asking a music store rep : "Do you sell Gibson products?"
 
The funny thing is that since I wasn't available when they called, they left me a message - not with an answer to my very, very simple question, mind you. That would have been too easy. Nah, they asked me to call back the 800 number, then press this and that and then ask a specific extension...
 

 
 

So you got called by a sales rep who was hoping to engage you in the subject of Gibson guitars and hopefully have you order one over the phone. It's 1000% easier to make a sale if you can talk to someone. I used to work in a market selling ornamental candles and we didn't have the price on anything, the idea being that customers would ask you the price and that was your opening. Whereas if you provided that info for them in the form of a sticker, they'd invariably take one look at it and walk away.

No doubt about it - but that usually doesn't work with me either. :P
 
In this case, it wasn't a sales rep - I picked Gibson only as an example. In fact, it was a relatively private matter, but let's just say it had nothing to do with buying, selling, subscribing or whatever, and the only possible answer was either yes or no.

sharke
 I frequently read texts, vow to respond to them later, then forget. So clients "shoot me texts" and I ask them nicely, "could you email me that request? I need to have it filed and categorized." It's just how I work. But they claim a text is more convenient for them. 

 
Maybe you should ask how convenient it is for them when you can't find their text because your system does not allow for searching through text messages?

Magic Russ

sharke
 I frequently read texts, vow to respond to them later, then forget. So clients "shoot me texts" and I ask them nicely, "could you email me that request? I need to have it filed and categorized." It's just how I work. But they claim a text is more convenient for them. 

 
Maybe you should ask how convenient it is for them when you can't find their text because your system does not allow for searching through text messages?

Of course this wouldn't be a problem if Apple just pulled their socks up and wrote a fully functional text app. I love my phone and it's served me well for work but I'm pretty sure my old BlackBerrys handled this kind of stuff better.