not intentionally sucky, but......

[KellyHabersham]

*Not sure these people could be considered "customers", but since this does involve a job of sorts that I do at church, I'm posting it here*

To give some background info - I'm one of the "Prayer Chain coordinators" at church, which basically means that when the office is closed, I'm one of the people whom one would call or e-mail with a prayer request to send out. (we recently merged with several other congregations, so most of what I send out involves my original church)

It doesn't involve a great deal of work, but one thing which has been getting on my nerves lately is that many of those who phone in prayer requests will NOT leave voice-mail messages. And just to list a few reasons why this causes problems for me:

- I don't have caller I.D. on my cell phone, so if I don't recognize the number, I have to Google it to find out who the caller is. If I cannot find any info, or I don't recognize the name/address, I'm not likely to call them back.

- if the person calls from a blocked number, they NEED to leave a voice-mail message, otherwise I have no way to contact them.

- I'm not always able to answer my cell phone anyhow, especially if I'm at work.

[Skarredmind]

I feel for you, this is a constant complaint I've had. Since caller ID came out a lot of people have gone to the "I don't need to leave a message, their called ID will get it" thing. I didn't *HAVE* caller ID until a few months ago, and while its great, I *DON'T* answer any call that either doesn't have a name attached or leave a message. Then occasionally I'll get a complaint from someone, "I've been calling you for *WEEKS!*"

Some folks just need a high five to the face...

[bainsidhe]

Unknown numbers for me are 99.9% telemarketing calls, so why would I answer or try calling back? It's not like I have unlimited minutes to waste if someone can't be bothered to leave a message.

[Bamko]

I have a simply statement I tell anyone I give my number to. "If you do not leave a message, then as far as I am concerned, you did not call me." If I have to tell them a second time : "Leave message or it didn't happen".

Easy peasy. I can explain if they ask about all of that, but usually I end up telling most who NEED to know why, this: "If it is not important enough to leave a message, then it is not important enough for me to return the call."

Of course you can explain how caller id does not always work, how many numbers are blocked, telemarketers, or whatever...

Or if you want, call back the numbers and let it ring once and hang up, and consider the call returned!

[Geek King]

I feel for you, this is a constant complaint I've had. Since caller ID came out a lot of people have gone to the "I don't need to leave a message, their called ID will get it" thing.

I have a strict rule: If it's not important enough to leave a message, it's not important enough for me to call you back.

At work, this is because Boss and I are too busy to worry about missed calls without messages. At home, it's because I'm a lazy bum.

[infinitemonkies]

The flip side of that is if you dial a wrong number you get some douche calling you in the middle of the night a week later screaming "who are you and why did you call me?!?"

[KellyHabersham]

The flip side of that is if you dial a wrong number you get some douche calling you in the middle of the night a week later screaming "who are you and why did you call me?!?"

I almost did that to one of those numbers.....they called a few times, I figured it might be someone from church so I answered the next time, and I just got static/what sounded like a teenage boy talking. I thought it might be one of my daughter's friends playing a prank, so she called them back on my phone, and apparently the caller said "I think you have the wrong number", and sounded like someone pretended to be an elderly woman.

I've since found out that the number is a cell phone for one of the women at church, but because she wouldn't leave a voice-mail, didn't identify herself/had a bad connection when she was on the phone, I had NO way to know this.

[EricKei]

I didn't *HAVE* caller ID until a few months ago...

I worked at an accounting firm for 6 years -- in the late "0's" -- the did not have Caller ID at all. I gathered that this was intentional. He wanted a live person to screen his calls, ignoring the simple fact that we can screen them MORE easily if we know what number they're calling from...He also didn't particularly care that we got calls every week or two (for the entire time that I was there) from people trying to sell us overpriced toner (we never bought any), and from FIVE different callers from "Globe logo phone company" trying to get us to return to their service, all on the same day, every damn month for all of those years...when we had left them years ago because they gave us shitty service for higher prices than the place we had jumped to...Keep in mind, this was a business, so we could not sign up for the DNC list.

Unknown numbers for me are 99.9% telemarketing calls, so why would I answer or try calling back?

Hear, hear! I've been on DNC for many years -- and i would never pick up any call that says "unlisted" or "blocked" anyway.

To echo the voicemail thing -- My actual voicemail message has words to the effect of, "If you don't leave a message & number, or at least a phone number, then you obviously don't want me to call you back that badly"

[Desk clerk knows all]

When people call from a room at the hotel, apparently it shows up on the caller ID of the person being called as the hotel's phone number. So I'm always getting calls from people saying "yeah, why'd ya call me?"

[MadonnaC]

I used to have a message - "Welcome to the new psychic answering machine. You think about leaving me a message, and I'll think about calling you back"

I'd also like to point out to companies - Just because a phone number becomes valid again, doesn't mean the same person has that number.

[raudf]

I only give as much a damn about a missed call as they do. If they need something, they will leave a message. If not, why should I call 'em back?

[Racket_Man]

I used to have a message - "Welcome to the new psychic answering machine. You think about leaving me a message, and I'll think about calling you back"

I'd also like to point out to companies - Just because a phone number becomes valid again, doesn't mean the same person has that number.

I only give as much a damn about a missed call as they do. If they need something, they will leave a message. If not, why should I call 'em back?

OR

What is happening to my GFs landline. I bitched about this over on Fratching. To summarize:

for the last 6 months or so 2 or 3 collections agencies have been phone bombing GFs land line. Now GF nor I have any debt or outstanding bills and I am not associated in anyway with her landline phone number .

It seems what they are doing is carpet bombing ANY person with the same last name looking for at least 2 persons with the same last name. These companies rarely leave messages and the only reason we know the actual name of the person is because in the beginning they did leave a robo-message stating the real name of the person.

The other thing that happens is we suspect that one of GFs stepsisters used/gave out GFs phone number as her own. we went through that several years ago.