How are callers supposed to know you won’t listen to their voicemail message? Do those callers have text or email options?
My parents leave voicemail messages. I listen to them. They don’t have text or email capability.
Oh, I don’t mind getting a message. I know some people don’t line them, so I will often text someone instead of leaving a message.
I do not like the assumption that I will call someone just because they called me. So if I opt not to leave a voicemail and I want the person to call or whatever I will text or something. And I tell people that if they want me to call they should either leave a VM or text me. Because unless I’m expecting your call, I will probably not call just because you called me.
Voice mail is very important in my line of work. If I am doing pastoral visits or in meetings most of the day it is the only way for people to communicate. My moonlighting job often requires contact with that office and I am not allowed to answer calls when with their clients. I am almost never home between 6:30 am and midnight. All my doctors have my cell number for that reason.
I work at an apartment complex. Many (if not most) of our residents 35 and younger do not even set up voice mail on their cell phones. If we call them and they do not answer we get a message saying this person has not set up their voice mail account. We then send them an email, which they usually respond to promptly. I take that to mean that VM is on its way out of style.
This is kind of funny. My mil went on a rant about my D. It was D’s birthday and grandma wanted to leave her a voicemail. She was very annoyed when her voicemail wasn’t set up because who does that. She went on and on, how rude that it was blah, blah.
I told my sil (I was annoyed). Come to find out, neither of my kids had set up vm, none of their cousins or my H, his brother and my sil.
I do listen to my voicemails. Mostly because I am friends with old people who still do leave them or they are reminders for appointments. My H hates to text so he leaves vm, thinks it’s easier than texting. I don’t leave vm except in rare cases as I know people don’t listen to them. It is annoying to call someone who doesn’t answer and then to make the effort to text if I have a specific question.
Argh. Just checked my voicemail at the land number. I had a message from the urgent scheduling person from a specialists office. My doc was supposed to give them my cell number and I put off pastoral visits while waiting for their call so I could avoid voice messages and phone tag.
@kkmama that is one reason we did away with our land line and only have cell phones. There is less confusion as to which number a person should call. (the main reason, though, is it saves money).
I leave vm’s for my kids sometimes to a) let them know why I called and thus why it’s important or not to call me back and b) so they hear my voice every now and then because you never know what will happen. Other than that, rarely because a text is enough and on a phone the notice that a call came in is often enough.
For these younger people who don’t do VM or set up VM on their phones, what do they do when job hunting? Or do employers no longer use the phone to call with job offers or for setting up interviews?
Now that you mention it, I have noticed that my sister very rarely responds to a voicemail I leave for her. Hmmm.
The only time my older kids bothered with VM was when job hunting. Now that S has started his own company, he is using VM once again. But for everything else they just text first.
No I don’t leave voice mail and don’t check voice mail that often. This morning I finally checked my VM because there is an annoying red light and the same guy left voice mail within an hour and then he sent an email. Talking about passive aggressive. So of course I deleted the voice mail and don’t call back. I’ve already responded to his email.
That’s not passive aggressive; it is prudent behavior given the number of people who ignore voicemail.
I hate, hate, hate getting and returning voicemail messages. Just hate them. In fact, I would rather have someone call and reach me on my cell during my off hours than have them leave a voicemail at the office, requiring me to face that hideous new message light on my office phone. And i much prefer email and texts to phone calls. I swear, it is almost a phobia.
Yeah, I ended up ignore his voicemail too. It was nothing important. An email would do and better for record keeping.
And a voicemail message has the least chance of being seen quickly or returned quickly. If you are with other people or in a meeting you certainly are not going to dial your voicemail and listen to a message. But how many times do you pick up your phone and check texts? My phone is always with me and I can easily get a quick glance at my texts at just about any time no matter who I am with.
And I can send a quick text in return a heck of a lot quicker than I can make a phone call.
We never answer the home phone which is 90% junk. Hardly anyone leaves messages either, but I have one die-hard friend who calls that phone no matter how many times I ask her or even more often her husband to use my cell. My cell gets lots of VM’s and they are nearly all important - mostly work related. I never call people just because they call me. If it’s not important enough to leave a message, it’s not important enough to call back. (BTW some people who don’t leave messages on the phone do end up emailing me.) I used to hate texts when I had a phone where I barely knew how it worked and you had to push every numbers three times to get through the alphabet, but now I get a fair number of them. It’s nice to have a record and not have to listen more than once because people speak too fast when leaving phone numbers and addresses.
I don’t give my cell phone out to lots of people either. Only close friends and relatives. I pay for that cell phone. If my work phone that’s a different story. I don’t answer my landline either. People should get a message that I don’t want to be bothered. LOL!
I look at the number. If it is one that is identified, I listen. If it is local I listen. Otherwise, no. Rarely get them.
For that matter, why do we say “dial” a number? When was the last time you used a rotary dial to make a phone call?
I still use voicemail…I get plenty of messages from my mother (who doesn’t have email or text) and doctors offices. Getting it on my iPhone is easy and even my home phone has an app on my iPhone so I can get the message anywhere.
I will also leave a voice message. But if I don’t leave one, I don’t expect a call (except perhaps from my husband, but if I really want a call, I’ll text him to “call me back”). And likewise, if someone calls and doesn’t leave a message I don’t bother calling back (if it was important they would leave a message!). Again, only possible exceptions to that would be my husband and kids – but again if they really needed me they would leave a message or text.