While waiting at the beginning of a five-hour window for a service tech to repair my washing machine, I answered a call from the repair company. A recording played confirming my appointment and said, “If you would like to track your technician and see the estimated time of arrival…”
I perked up. What a great idea! I’ll know when the tech is due to arrive and won’t have to sit around wondering.
Except what followed was an offer to visit a web URL that was—and I’m estimating here—at least 35 characters long, including several backslashes and one dash. This wasn’t a voicemail I could listen to again. This was a recording on a call that I’d answered, and there was no option to repeat the information. Even if I’d been prepared with a pen and paper at the ready, I’m not sure I could have scribbled furiously enough to capture the URL successfully.
Somebody in that company made the decision about what that outgoing recording would say. Does any rational person really think that a customer could successfully write that down, much less remember it? If not, or if they just didn’t care, why offer the option if all it’s going to do is frustrate people?
Whether you’re running a counseling business, working in a high school, creating (and evaluating) college applications, applying to the colleges of your dreams, or serving as the treasurer for the high school Latin Club, it’s hard to understate the value of just thinking things through. Does this action you’re about to take make sense? Would you appreciate it if you were on the receiving end? If not, what would you do differently?
The world might be an increasingly complex place, with information and technology progressing faster than at any time in our history. It’s hard to keep up, even for the savviest of us.
But just plain common sense never goes out of style.