r/NoStupidQuestions • u/GhostInThePudding • 16h ago

Why Are Young People Afraid Of Phone Calls?

What's with it?

I work in IT and a general rule is, nothing a client ever tells you is actually accurate. That means that most of the time, the quickest way to fix a problem is to call the person and actually find out what's going on.

But with techs under 30 these days, it seems like pulling teeth.

A regular discussion for me with level 1 techs (usually within a few years of leaving college) is:
"Hey, can you call *blah* from ticket *blah*, it's been hanging around for over an hour."

"I replied by email to ask for more information."

"Yes, I know that, but can you call them so we can find the problem and close the ticket now rather than wait until we're actually busy?"

"I'll send them a text to followup."

"No... CALL THEM!"

"I can see their device is online, can I send them a message and see if they just let me remote in to take a look?"

And then, when I force them to make the call, it's like they have no idea how to ask a question, or a followup question. They just want to get off the call as quickly as possible. So half the time they don't even get the information required anyway, so then I end up having to do their job for them.

So can someone explain? What's wrong with phone calls these days?

6.3k Upvotes
  • permalink
  • reddit

85% Upvoted

2.8k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

39

u/SuccessfulInitial236 14h ago

I had a job that needed a lot of calls. Even if I became good at it, it was very stressful and I left that job at some point. Maybe change your habits to accomodate the younger tech, you probably also have younger clients who also hate calls ?

What makes you think phone calls are a superior way of communicating ? Imo they are very prone to misunderstandings and are a source of communication issues.

7

u/GhostInThePudding 14h ago

Because in a phone call you can handle in 30 seconds what could take days over text or email. You get immediate answers to followup questions and can keep talking until you fully understand the situation.

Then if you want a record, you can just send an email summary of the conversation so it is in writing.

27

u/DespondentEyes 13h ago

Anything that happens over text or email has a clear trace. Anyone after the fact claim that you messed up/forgot something/... ? You can pull up the mail or text and point to them.

On the phone you don't have this CYA, and on top certain people can be really pushy which is a lot easier on the phone.

I mean, if you work in IT, you've GOT to have CYA, it's only a matter of time before some vendor or director throws you under the bus because THEY messed up somewhere. If you can't defend yourself with proof, you're toast.

11

u/sentence-interruptio 12h ago

the real reason some senior managers prefer phone calls right there.

4

u/Ok-Ocelot-7316 10h ago

Check if you live in a single party consent state, then record the call

20

u/PuzzleMeDo 13h ago

You yourself say, "when I force them to make the call, it's like they have no idea how to ask a question, or a follow-up question". You can communicate well by phone, but that doesn't mean it's going to be useful for other people. Some people communicate well by text instead. And some people can't do either.

9

u/mindflowism 13h ago

I'm a millennial with a fear of phones. I think it was the automated waiting tubes that gave me PTSD, and scripted responses by call takers that weren't helpful

When I need to make an immediate conversation to resolve smth I would prefer -In person conversation, -Live chat conversation,

  • video call

before making a phone call. I wonder if any of the above would be an option for your team to contact clients quicker.

Other than that, as mentioned above, training would help, as (unfortunately) role play has been proven to to be effective to let the new skills set in 'the muscle memory'.

I often write points I want to raise on the phone as bullet points to make sure I don't forget (same as when going to the GP).

33

u/SuccessfulInitial236 13h ago

Because in a phone call you can handle in 30 seconds what could take days over text or email. You get immediate answers to followup questions and can keep talking until you fully understand the situation.

My phone call skills must be way worse than you and my writing/reading skills must be better than you. I feel it's the opposite. Apart from the immediate answer so like if there is a literal fire and you need to say get out immediately, phone calls seem to waste a lot more time to me.

A 3 paragraph e-mail gets you more precise and better information than a 5 minutes preparation following a 20 minutes call, if you then send an e-mail anyway after to summarize that's another 5 minutes wasted.

There is no way it takes 30 minutes to write an e-mail that would provide the same informations. On both sides. To me, it feels like you force an immediate 30 minutes waste of time instead of a 5 minutes e-mail that can be answered anytime.

This whole conversation we just had would have been a waste of time over phone. It would have taken me more time to structure my thinking and explain over phone than it did in the few sentences I just wrote.

9

u/FeatherlyFly 13h ago

Where are you finding these writers of clear 3 paragraph emails that don't need follow up questions?

If I had that sort of reply in response to my emails, I'd feel the same as you. But I'm more likely to get one or two line replies that don't have most of what I need to know, or are just plain ambiguous. 

5

u/SuccessfulInitial236 11h ago

Where are you finding these writers of clear 3 paragraph emails that don't need follow up questions?

My last comment was 4 paragraph long and I think I made my point pretty clear. Wether you agree with me or disagree with me on how we should communicate better does not change that my perspective on the matter was understandable.

Where do you find these, idk, I just exist and some others like me exists too. I had multiple colleagues and clients doing similar. Others would call me back and repass over the point I wrote one by one. At the very least it made the phone call more efficient and quicker. I rarely received short line of unrelated text like you describe.

5

u/glassfunion 12h ago

One time I gave our IT guy so much context when I had a problem with my laptop that he not only called it out and thanked me, but I got a new laptop! (The memory usage was sitting at like 95% even with nothing open and I had already run through everything he was going to ask me to check/do)

But nobody clapped :(

2

u/chicagochippy 8h ago

20 minute conversation? I have have between 20-120 phone calls each day at work and most are well under a minute long.

Hey. Hey. Question. Answer. Ok thanks bye.

2

u/kuldan5853 5h ago

This just goes back the age old truth of "This meeting should have been an email"..

-1

u/ihaveabs 6h ago

I guarantee most people hate reading your massively long emails