Phone vs. Email
In the business world, there are phone people, and there are email people. I’ll admit right upfront that I’m an email person. There are situations when phone or face-to-face meetings are necessary or more appropriate, but for most day to day issues, I think email is great.
Consider this scenario: I send an email checking on the status of something. The other person gets the email, and realizes they need to ask me something that basically requires a yes or no answer.
Instead of emailing, they phone me. Naturally, I miss the call and they leave me a long message re-explaining the entire situation, asking me the question, and leaving their contact information and the times they can be reached.
I have to log into my voicemail, retrieve the message, listen to it (possibly more than once) and take down the contact info. Then I call them back — and, you guessed it — they’re not available. By the time I finally get them tracked down and give them their answer, I’ve probably spent a good 10-15 minutes intermixed with other tasks. That’s not that long, you say. Perhaps not on its own, but that’s not the only issue I have to deal with in a day.
Let’s be very conservative and say that I only have 10 such issues per day:
- Email: 1-2 minutes to reply x 10 incidents = 10-20 minutes per day
- Phone: 10-15 minutes to reply x 10 incidents = 1.5-3 hours per day
So with email, I can be about 900% more efficient. Is this a no-brainer, or am I missing something here?
April 8th, 2008 at 9:01 pm
Your example is valid enough, but the reverse can also be true. There are at least 2 or 3 times a day where I finally get frustrated with a back and forth email conversation that I pick up the phone and resolve it in 2 minutes.
April 8th, 2008 at 9:10 pm
came across this post thru twitter.
i will join your club - i’m an email person.
i think people give email a bad wrap b.c most people use it inefficiently. they either a) write too much or b) don’t read emails properly. nothing drives me more bonkers than having to resend an email saying “can you please address the second question?” i’ve started to number things so that that reader can immediately see what they need to address.
what i like best about email is that i can cut thru the chit chat - it may sound cold but if I want to have a nice talk I’ll call. If I want to get things done, I’ll email.
z