Email killed the telephone star . . . ?

From Christmas luxuries to true love, the internet now professes to be an in-house, at-your-fingertips solution for almost anything. Just as the days of the telegram were numbered by the phone, and VHS wound down for DVD, email is quietly swelling as the communication technology of choice. Now web experts www.peoplecompare.co.uk ask whether the ever-growing convenience and popularity of the medium means vocal communication will eventually get a message to ‘stop’.

An afternoon of telephoning human resources (HR) teams nationwide yielded surprising results for us here at Peoplecompare. Around 80% refused to take our call, despite us making it very clear that we were not selling a product or service, and only wanted two minutes to ask questions pertaining to readership trend, All of these people wanted an email!

So what is it about emails that these HR professionals find so attractive? Does it really take less time to read and process all that writing than to respond to a 60 second call? Perhaps not, but there is certainly some pragmatic promise to the option.

For instance, how often have you cut a salesperson short - be they recruiter, mobile phone company or one-man-band organic furniture provider - with a cheery “Sounds great, get it all over in an email”? Now you can make a decision when you like - take your time, mull it over, with no in-the-moment pressure.

Or perhaps you’re just plain bad on the phone - your churlish voice betrays an inner nervousness for which lines of text provide a welcome façade, or you find your mind wandering from the wittering of the receiver to shinier things in your surroundings? An email is a handy storage facility for information that you can go over and over again - and, of course, keep a nice secure paper trail of.

Whatever each individual’s reason, and however fast its popularity continues to spread, few would argue that email is any less than a firmly established method of day-to-day business communication. Just as well, then, that this flexible, stress-free, convenient and secure method is one of the key ways in which Peoplecompare.co.uk puts recruiters and employers in touch.

Comment by Ian Swan on December 17, 2008 at 10:21am: I agree. I get bored of the send me an email reply, I always see it as a stall or a brush off tactic. I have to be honest though I have a tendancy to do it myself - especially to job boards.

Comment by Ian Buckingham on December 18, 2008 at 3:00pm: I think the whole thing lies on the fact that the recruitment game is now one of the feircest sales jobs in the world and to be honest id get pretty tired of 10+ agency calls myself a day or god forbid more.
now we in the recruitment sector (especially industrial) are known as the biggest sharks on the planet and are finding ourselves increasingly shunned.
I think its time for people to take note and ADAPT OR FAIL!
as you stated kevyn yes people are shying away from these calls, the recruitment consultant is getting pushier and the sales tactics more aggressive.
The calls happen at home they happen at work you are bombarded by telephone spam until you want to scream.
I think people are fed up of pushy sales calls and now a more sophisticated approach is needed.
I shant blurt out what i do right here and now but if you ponder on other avenues and think (yes its a cliche) out of the box you will survive if not ..........go sell windows.
Hard copy brochure plus email plus phonecall? theres a hint!
perhaps telephone manner has something to do with it, i receive far too many phonecalls from people who can bareley grasp their native language let alone want to actually listen to you!