Stop asking me for my phone number | Hacker News Reader

Stop asking me for my phone number

spottedsun.com

246 pointsveb80 comments

According to some brief research, it looks like somewhere around 0.33% of Americans under 85 are deaf, and around 4% are hard of hearing [1]. I find it preposterous to optimize for that small section of the user population at the expense of the overwhelming number of our users who tell us that phone is their preferred method of contact. We're probably going to continue asking for a phone number, because many users would be frustrated if email were the only method of reply available.

What I'm NOT suggesting is that we fail to accommodate deaf users. We don't have a policy on how to accommodate deaf or sight impaired customers, but we rely heavily on non-phone based means of communication, like Skype, so I'd imagine we could accommodate deaf users relatively easily. We use well formed HTML with semantic markup, but could probably stand to do some testing with screen readers.

Come to think of it. This request has moved me to action. Staff resources are going to be updated with notes on accommodating users with disabilities, including links to TTY services in the resource handbook. Solving this problem is probably easier than you think. All the major phone carriers are required to provide TTY services [2].

1 - http://research.gallaudet.edu/Demographics/deaf-US.php

2 - http://www.google.com/search?q=tty+services

A lot more than just your deaf customers hate phone calls. They're disruptive, intrusive, unreliable, and for many people with autism-spectrum disorders, extremely uncomfortable.

... And people who don't speak English so well.

Moreover if his customers truly prefer the phone, he could make giving the phone number optional and people would still give it out.

Google voice solves this pretty well... I get an email saying someone left a VM with the poor but adequate transcript.

What service are you running where the "overwhelming number of [y]our users" tell you that phone is their preferred method of contact?

As I wrote on the blog, email allows me to:

    - respond when it’s convenient for me.
    - keep most of my attention on what I’m doing.
    - archive and share the correspondence easily.
    - filter content I don’t want to hear anymore.
    - remain anonymous.
    - make careful, researched, edited responses.
    - include screenshots, links to videos, and other files which might be helpful.
    - continue to correspond if I loose my hearing and/or speaking abilities.

I’m not hearing impaired, and I much prefer email. Phone calls are only acceptable in a small number of situations, and I want to be the person to decide when those situations occur.

Yeah, for a lot if cases it's harder to explain things over the phone. Also you might get someone who doesn't know the answer and you need to explain it again to the next person. Add to that I'd rather my email sit in a queue that stay on hold on the phone.

I generally prefer phone contact. Not because I actually prefer talking on the phone, but because of how different most companies treat email and phone contact.

When you talk on the phone, you have someone who's listening to you right now, and if they misunderstand you, you can re-explain. If they continue to be unhelpful, you can talk to a supervisor.

Email, on the other hand, seems to go into a queue, which is responded to with one of a variety of boilerplate responses, most of which aren't really quite to the point. Yeah, I can respond when it's convenient to me, but so can they, causing a simple misunderstanding to require multiple round trips of idiocy lasting several days.

Phone calls allow me to:

    - make sure that I have your attention until my problem is solved

Phone calls make sure I waste my time trying to get your attention via low-paid level one staff who have minimal training and who possibly hate me and all other customers; until I give up navigating your awful phone-menu system and getting misunderstood by aforementioned staff and being put on hold for hours

So you think the staff replying to your emails are highly paid and love you?

No, but it doesn't cost me money to send an email. I'm in the UK. We tend to have to pay to call companies. Where a company has a "freephone" number that's only free from landlines (and possibly a small number of mobile tariffs) - anyone calling from a mobile will have to pay lots.

The combination of poor customer service, and not getting the problem resolved, and having to pay for it, is horrible.

Our customers are other businesses, but not focused on the technology field (electronic purchasing, actually), so your mileage may vary. I'm certain that if our target customer were tech-focused, that far more would prefer email, but that's just not the case for us.

I fully recognize the benefits of asynchronous communication, but I'm not out to educate my customers on the best way to communicate. I'm here to respond to them in whatever way they prefer. You'll be happy to hear that we let them choose the preferred method.

I'm much like you. For the most part, I prefer email, especially with a new client/potential client, because I hate being caught off guard in those first moments. It's often easier to explain things in writing. I can edit before clicking "send" and it gives me a written record of whatever it is we've been talking about without having to take notes.

That said, I also quite frequently run into situations where multiple emails or IM conversations that go nowhere could be easily solved by a quick phone call. But this generally happens when I'm working on a project with someone, rather than simply passing along information.

I prefer email for general correspondence, but if I'm looking to do some brainstorming and collaborative problem-solving, or to do a quick review of some code/layout/functionality nothing beats a phone call. It's more engaging and more fast-paced for quickly exchanging and discussing ideas than email or even IM.

I prefer phone for urgent and important matters like bank transactions , for others i prefer email, i can think before replying to them , it will help both parties ,if the email is framed properly, there will be no need for further converstions. But yeah reply does take time , it would be good if we include a php script that lets us know if they had opened our mail or not.

And for physically impaired people , there must be an option for SMS , as he said it is 2011 and technology helps :)

I feel like I must be one of the only people on HN who doesn't mind a phone call. Yes, admittedly, I am not hearing impaired, and I do understand the desire to pick your preferred method of communication, but a lot of times it can take me 30 seconds to solidify something in a phone call that could take 4-5 texts or chat messages, especially if you are trying to actually make plans with someone.

Besides accessibility being enshrined in law in many places there are lots of people that simply don't like giving their phone number and/or being called. Giving your users multiple options for communication is a no-brainer.

> Besides accessibility being enshrined in law in many places

This is already resolved by the phone company for hearing impaired people. It's not as if phones just popped up. They've been around for a bit longer then the internet.

I don't think the OP is suggesting phone support should be phased out; he's saying that email support should be there too and be on par. I can name a couple of companies I've had to interact with in the past few days that only offer phone support: Student Finance, EDF Energy.

www.edfenergy.com/products-services/for.../priority_services.pdf

>If you have a textphone, please call our Minicom Line free on 0800 096 2929

I agree that email (as well as phone) is a better solution.

The trick is to be polite and say HOW should we contact you? You prefer email? Okay, email please. And you prefer phone? Okay, phone number please.

And never, never put a "required" validation on something like a phone number that someone simply may not have at all.

Yes, this is the best way to handle customer preferred contact. When someone "requires" a phone number, I think, "I'm not answering that phone call - you need to email me so I can work you into my day."

Why do you insist on creating a false dichotomy between requiring a phone number and disallowing phone contact altogether? You can support multiple methods of communication with any single one being optional. Making the phone number optional wouldn't inconvenience your other customers in the slightest.

I've found that if provided with a phone number, the people you'd least like to call you, do.

Phone calls from anyone are usually a pain in the ass. I have to stop what I'm doing and context-switch wasting my time. Unless your company is live dispatching transplant organs or is rescuing me from being trapped in an earthquake or if you're my wife--I NEVER want a phone call. I don't like wasting my time listening to nonsense. Amazon works just fine without calling me so I can't imagine why any other business aside from a few very narrow exceptions would ever need to call anyone. Remove validates phone number :presence => true and leave me the hell alone. Xie xie.

TTY users are declining. I don't know the statistics, but 80% of my interaction with the Deaf is by Videophone (VP) (aka video relay service (VRS)).

Training staff on how a VRS or TTY relay call works is pretty simple. A few general rules are: 1) Talk as if you are addressing the Deaf person directly (don't say, "tell her hello", say "hello"). 2) Speak in discrete chunks of meaning with pauses in between to give the interpreter a chance to catch up. 3) Expect everything you say to be interpreted.

By all means, have a field in your forms for "phone number". Just don't make it a required field.

>We don't have a policy on how to accommodate deaf or sight impaired customers,

This is not legal in the UK under disability discrimination laws; I'm surprised it's not the same in other countries.

As well as being not legal it's a pretty shoddy way to treat potential customers.

>This request has moved me to action.

Cool! I'd be really interested to read how it goes; if you have problems; if you get any customer feedback.

Someday unified communications....

It will seem anachronistic that phones/email/txt/vm/video were all so disconnected. Each with different rules, and methods of connection. The first thing to go will probably be phone numbers. I can already imagine my future grandchildren saying "You had to memorize a ten digit number for anyone you wanted to talk to?!"

Makes me wonder what it will look like in the long run. Probably something like a chat client. Where you list modes of communication that are currently available (voice, video, text, draw), and indirect status messages.

A mismatch in communcation level could be handled with automated middleware. So if a company demands a "voice" channel, the author could send it through an automated text to speech, and the same translation would happen in reverse. In a pinch you could do something similar with language translation (text to text only).

I just hope it's a distributed and open system. Similar to how email operates today. I'd hate to think we'd embrace another communications gatekeeper (Facebook or Google as the new Ma Bell)

So email is the unified communication.

I liked the one comment in the article where the guy recommended a public service that gave the deaf a real phone number which just contained a recording informing callers that the person was deaf. That way they could enter a real phone number of forms that insisted on one.

I don't know anyone at Twilio but if they want to perform a public service and gets lots of karma it wouldn't be a bad thing to go do.

I will give anyone here that wants to do this a boat load of Twilio credit to get started. Email me jsheehan@twilio.com

Wow. My hat off to you, sir. :)

Terrific! Kudos to Twilio for being so reponsive. Guys just make certain that both the original blog author and the folks at nad.org know about it to give the pubicity it deserves to their members.

I think we've got enough people that have emailed me interested that this problem is going to be solved soon.

Here's the first go at the number: (415) 329-5992

It's just using the basic Twilio text to speech, but I'll get a proper recording in there so it's easier to understand shortly. Website should be up in a day or so. Any feedback is appreciated.

If anyone wants to pitch in with some ideas on how to provide a better service or wants to hack together, let me know!

So far, I'm planning to put up numbers for major metro areas, and possibly allow for personal numbers that will either transcribe and email messages to the owner or go some sort of SMS route.

Also, if anyone has a contact at nad.org, please let them know.

DISCLAIMER: this is for good karma only, any ideas for this other than not for profit will be turned down :)

Challenge accepted, email sent.

I also liked the reply (from a Twilion) which implemented it. "This could be also be a Twilio app that could be easily written in less than a minute. Actually, here you go"

http://spottedsun.com/stop-asking-me-for-my-phone-number/#co...

I'm deaf. Not sure about other countries, but here in the US we have free video relay services that have a number attached to your account. Calls go to a video interpreter, who will also take messages for you.

I don't particularly like dealing with calls either, but for the times when I must, my cell number forwards to VRS. Problem solved.

As a hearing person who has communicated with deaf people over relay service, let me tell you it sucks just as much being on the other end of a relay call. It seems to have all the disadvantages of email and phone rolled into one, with just enough added latency over a straight phone call to be annoying.

I wish I had an alternative to suggest, but whether anybody likes it or not, every so often, hearing-impaired people are going to need to communicate with people over the phone, and those of us who can hear need to just suck it up.

While VRS is probably the closest to real-time voice communication, it's similar to speaking through a synchronous translator for another language. I've done synchro work and it's not the best way. No wonder so many political gestures get miscommunicated at conferences!

I'd say SMS and chat are far better (or email), as you are actually communicating with the person directly.

That way they could enter a real phone number of forms that insisted on one.

In my (non-hearing impaired) world, that's what pay phones are for. If your site insists on a phone number, then you get to talk to somebody who has, presumably out of sheer boredom, picked up the phone in front of the 7-11 at the corner of NE 42nd and Pine.

Are we talking about asking or requiring? I agree no one should require a phone number, but it's completely reasonable to ask if people want to use that rather than email.

This is the key point isn't it? For so many services whose core demographic is not HN readers, vast numbers of the customers will prefer to use a telephone over anything else. Even I will occasionally prefer to call if there's an issue with a large company that needs sorting immediately, or I'm finding emails getting constantly ignored.

Certainly requiring a telephone number (or any other personal details that I'd rather not share) is ridiculous, and it's the company's responsibility to contact me at my convenience, but there'd be a far bigger complaint over services no longer even asking for a number.

Phone calls get ignored too. Just ask my credit card company.

Agreed, but at some point asking starts to feel like badgering.

Basically every time I log on to Zipcar.com to make a reservation they throw up an interstitial asking for my phone number. It gets old. If I declined the first 5 times, what will make the next 50 times any different?

Huzah.

Contrarians, please remember that, regardless of your opinion or business size, you are required by federal law (ADA of 1990) to make your services accessible to the deaf and hard of hearing. For some great examples, scroll down to "Ten Small Business Mistakes" on this page - http://www.ada.gov/videogallery.htm

I've nothing against phone calls (except being asked for my number for no reason), but Bill Bailey had a bit in one of his earlier stand-ups (can't remember which one) where he said the phone call is the most impolite form of communication.

It's like shouting in someone's ears saying, "I WANT YOU TO STOP WHAT YOU'RE DOING AND SPEAK TO ME RIGHT NOW!"

They did a segment on that in an episode with Bill Bailey on QI: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7xXSw07zrio

There are so many problems with telephones as contact. They of course work by voice. They are synchronous, and so require timing. They are very expensive. They don't internationalize well. They are a link to a lot of personal information.

I don't mind being asked for a phone number, so long as it's optional. I will not sign up for any service where my only means of contact is by phone (though I do permit "I physically walk into your office", for local-ish services).

So basically the service I built[1] is completely useless? Hasn't even been out for a week! :)

[1]: https://www.remindlyo.com

It is completely useless for me. It's also completely useless for deaf people, or for people whose phone system doesn't interface well with yours, or for many other classes.

That's not necessarily a bad thing; it's an essential characteristic of the service. Just be aware that you're excluding a lot of people.

Your particular application takes advantage of the synchronicity issue. Other than that, the only issue that applies to everyone is the cost.

I'm not deaf, but I strongly dislike companies calling me. Why do they think I am using the web or email to contact them? SMS spam is a growing problem too, and hard to filter (at least with the old phone I use). It all feels like an invasion of privacy, and companies should be aware I'm unlikely to buy anything from them if they force me to provide contact numbers.

I agree with you, but for different reasons. Calling someone is as intimate as you could get, next to seeing someone, plus it's realt-ime. I rather email. If I want to talk to you I will call you.

And at least from my perspective, cell phones are only making this truer given that you get interrupted wherever you are and whatever you're doing. In my case, that means I basically just give my cell phone number to people I want to be able to reach me. Everyone else gets a work or home landline number. And good luck reaching me on one of those--especially if I don't recognize the caller ID. I don't even check messages when traveling. (I do still maintain a landline primarily because I sometimes need to make high quality calls for business purposes--and other options aren't as reliable.)

I think you nailed it - phone call today is far more important and intimate than it ever was. Same thing with an SMS - it's a guaranteed read. To me, if it's important - send me an email or a letter. If it's urgent and super important - send me an SMS. If all of my networth is going down the drain and you need a split second decision, call me.

I couldn't agree more. The annoying part is when they ask you to call them so they can verify your identity.

It is a safe assumption that they don't do voice recognition, so why do they think I can't just spell the same numbers out loudly I'd have sent in an email...?

No, the annoying part is when they call you and immediately demand you verify your identity to someone without even any Caller ID.

(And my but they get shirty when you use the appropriate language which the situation requires when telling them to get off the line.)

Banks are as annoying as you can get for this. Imagine being cold-called and being asked some questions to prove you are who you say you are.

Imagine then the correspondence the same bank sends in various forms about keeping the same information to yourself to prevent your account being compromised.

The phone has its place.

Generally it's buried somewhere far from me under a pillow.

I'm a non-deaf, high-functioning normal. I hate phone calls for all the reasons iterated here (intrusive, annoying, inconsiderate, lossy, non-searchable, difficult (or illegal) to record, etc.). I'll just include reemrevnivek's post by reference, it's excellent: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3104873

I might check voicemail once a week (sorry, Mom).

My voicemail message basically says "don't leave a voicemail".

My biggest present gripe: recruiters who call at all hours of the day. Actually, thanks to them I found a call-blocking app for my phone, such that only known numbers will ring.

Even with blocking, phone calls interrupt current activity on the phone (not so hot when you're buried deep in a technical problem and it's the only link out to technical resources which might help).

What I'd like to see is the ability to classify contacts by who is or isn't allowed to actually ring through to the handset.

And that null-voicemail feature others have suggested.

> What I'd like to see is the ability to classify contacts by who is or isn't allowed to actually ring through to the handset.

Google voice allows you to do this. I have everyone except my friends and family go through call screening before they can ring my phone. I also have a recruiter who was calling me blocked with a "this number is disconnected" message. (he used 6 different numbers before I completely blocked him... yeesh)

I'm not deaf, but I share the sentiment. If we are not very close friends or related, I don't answer your call. And I've taken to giving my Google Voice number to some of the more persistent callers with it going straight to voicemail. I get what I want (an email with a mediocre speech-to-text version of the message) and they get what they want (to use a phone).

Tottally on your side, we stop the phone support in the company since we started lol .. email ist a way more helpful without a doubt

For some instances where I know it's for marketing purposes but also that they'll use it as a lookup key for my account (e.g., loyalty cards) I give my parent's phone number.

Between that and being on the national do not call list (U.S.), I get no sales calls.

Occasionally, I'll use a 555 prefix (like in books or movies) which is a reserved designation for fictional numbers.

This is the reason why most online relay services, such as i711, provide their users with free inbound numbers.

When a call is received, the user is notified via a variety of mediums, including instant message, SMS, and I think some other desktop/mobile apps they have. If the deaf user accepts the call, the relay informs the caller that the other individual is deaf and begins to transcribe the call.

2-way conversation (text<----->relay<----->caller)

In addition, these services provide transcriptions of voicemail / etc and are completely FREE (sponsored by individual state tax dollars in US). I'm really surprised that the post makes no note of these services, since I have known about them for years and am not hard of hearing.

Whenever I notice customer service requires speaking on the phone, I'm fairly sure that they do that to avoid having a record of their conversation. +1 to public pressure to force these guys to support the sense disabled. But you can't combat that with government regulation- at least not in any sensible way. Instead, lobby Mozilla, Google, Microsoft, Apple, and Opera to enforce accessibility via page warnings, etc. That may actually be something that the government could help with - working with these companies and standards committees to ensure representation of the disabled.

Nope, when calling customer service, almost all say "This conversation may be recorded for quality insurance".

Something you might find useful: that standard statement also gives you permission to record the call yourself.

(You may or may not need such permission, depending on your legal jurisdiction.)

Do you have a cite to a case or good reference for this? I've heard it before, and it would be nice to have a source for it, in case I ever need to rely on it.

https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Telephone_rec... provides a good starting point. I don't know of an authoritative citation offhand.

I prefer email myself since I work on the night shift and pretty much miss every call during the day.

I repeat my comment from the blog post - the real question here is whether we should expect companies to communicate with us using the method we want or should we communicate the way the company wants. The internet is moving us more towards the former every day.

I don't like phone calls. SMS is tolerable.

I prefer email or IM (or a forum).

Phone is very susceptible to noise and hearing issues; it's not searchable without fancy transcription equipment, and frankly, I don't have time to think and give the answer that a quality question deserves.

T-Mobile wont let me not have voicemail even if I offer to continue paying for it and not employ it. I just dont want it on. I never check it and I'm unclear why we must absolutely have to have it... I am not hearing impaired.

I just use a google voice number set to transcribe all incoming calls and email. Unless someone has a very inconvenient accent, it seems to work well. I'm not deaf, merely antisocial.

A signup form is there to make money. Optimizing against 0.5% of the population at the expense of 99.5% is a poor way to make money.

If they require a phone number for activation, that's straight up annoying to everyone, and a terrible way to make money. If they just ask for the number, you can enter a fake, no harm, no foul

Finally a reason to get away from the contact forms that have not changed forever.

Just put a fake phone number with the right number of numbers.

Not even my parents have a real phone number for me, I'm sure as hell not going to give you one when asked by some 19 year old cashier! But, I no longer have to debate with these people about whether they really need my phone number or not, I just give them the google voice number.

As a programmer, I've found that interruptions are the most problematic thing that keeps me from being more productive, and nothing is more irritating than being interrupted by a pointless phone call. So, over a decade ago, I stopped having a landline, and only gave my cell number to a small number. Then I stopped carrying a cell completely.

I'm kinda amazed, in this day and age, how many organizations primary method of communication is the phone. I've had people, on multiple occasions, say "I can't do that for you via this forum, please call us at XXX".

The only reason I want an iPhone 4Steve (unlocked, of course) is because I want to have data access everywhere. The ability to make the occasional phone call for those people (usually government offices it seems) still stuck in the 19th century is a minor bonus.

If you require a phone number in order to do business with you, I simply will not do business with you.

If you didn't dress like such a slut you wouldn't have this problem.

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