Legal Research

"Talk to Me: Putting an End to Canned Conversations"

This post was written by Jordan Furlong:  "So, have you recently left a voice mail for someone under 30, never to have it returned or even acknowledged? A post at the Legal Blog Watch might have the answer: it seems Millennials regard voice mails as unsolicited messages not much different than spam, and treat them accordingly. It's an interesting idea, one I fact-checked with a friend in his 30s. His reply: "I've been known to let my voice mail sit for days. If it's important, they'll (a) call back or (b) email my BlackBerry, and I can respond from wherever I am." It's hard to argue with the sheer pragmatism of that approach.

The LBW post touched off a lengthy discussion in which many people talked about how much they dislike voice mail. Interestingly, though, most of the dislike was for receiving voice mails, the hassle of going through the endless series of commands only to get a short and often pointless message. Hardly anyone talked about whether they liked leaving voice mails. And that raises a question relevant to communication in law firms, one I've been pondering for a while. Here's the question, one you can ask yourself: "As a general rule, if I'm phoning someone to give them information, am I happier to reach them in person or to to hear the click of the voice mail activating?" 

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Source: Law Firm Web Strategy, 13 August 2010. Copyright © 2007 - 2010 Stem Legal Web Enterprises Inc. Reproduced with permission of the author.

Full post as published by Stark County Law Library Blawg on August 19, 2010 (boomark / email).