As a millenial, I'm more amazed that someone willingly uses a phone for non-mandatory and not-burningly-urgent phonecalls... why on earth would anyone do that is way beyond me.
I scheduled an apartment viewing recently, and the only method they provided to do so was chatting with an AI (seriously)... I then tried and failed to find a way to contact a human for confirmation multiple times. Lo and behold nobody at the leasing office when I showed up at the scheduled time. Came back later and eventually found somebody - they had not seen anything I'd done with the bot.
Software for small businesses and local governments is often really bad and I'd much prefer to make sure a person knows what I'm trying to get accomplished.
I got to talk to one of the leasing managers at one of the viewings and I told him it made them seem cheaper, not more tech-savvy. He told me they had spent millions of dollars on it.
Was it RealPage? I hear they're illegally colluding to raise prices.
If you have minimal to zero scruples, this seems to be an easy market to make a start up in. Landlords will buy anything!
I called their office and after 20 minutes of trying to go around their obnoxious automated phone menu's I finally got someone who informed me who said they don't use THAT app any more to schedule appointments I need to use their NEW app and sent me a totally different app link in an email. I told them they are probably losing a ton of business because very clearly the OTHER app is still very much out in the wild and still very much being used.
I went with a different company and had much better luck.
Support from days gone by was not perfect (hold times, support reading off a script)but it was often a nice option.
First of all, understand that many especially smaller companies have people who has the job of answering phone calls. Rather than doing a multi day back and forth via email or chat where you're one out of five that "agent" is currently servicing, calling is really really efficient. Clarification and confirmations are instant, alternatives can be quickly discuses. I call because it's efficient.
Also, have you ever noticed that most people SUCK at email? Try sending an email to company with two or more questions. What will happen is that you'll get an answer for the first question and then they forget about the rest. The larger the company the more likely this is to happen, because they can deal with three issues in one support ticket, at least that's my theory. So now you need three email.
I used to hate calling people, but I found that I hated uncertainty more and I hate getting wrong half answers to my questions. Calling people fixes all of this. Always call, but get confirmation in writing.
For example, I can call a local store and ask "hi, do you have this item in stock, can you check on the shelf and set it aside for me please, I will be there in 25 mins".
By contrast stuff like "click and collect" order flows online are super rigid.
Thanks to AI, you will speak to who you think is a "real person"...
I remember, some time ago, some scammer tried to get my wife to address an "urgent bank issue."
What tipped her off, was how incredibly good their "tech support" was.
Time to go outside more :)
I do not mind a phone call when I am the one initiating and hence, I know the context of it and the expectations.