Who even leaves voicemails anymore? Even if people do, what are the chances you are actually going to listen to it? Hello, it's called a text.
It seems like Coca-Cola also believes it's time to put voice messages to an end because it decided to kill voicemail at its headquarters in Atlanta last month.
According to an internal memo from Coca-Cola's CIO Ed Steinike, the popular soft-drink giant decided to get rid of voicemail for their employees in order "to simplify the way we work and increase productivity." Instead, Coca-Cola views more modern forms of communications like texting and email more efficient ways of communicating with customers.
When using the voicemail system, recipients would have to scroll through messages, reading them one at time and transcribe them before deletion. Emails may be the best way to communicate since employees no longer have to transcribe messages, which can be a grueling process.
The decision to get rid of voicemail was announced in a November 6 memo as part of a program that aims to cut $3 billion a year by 2019. Coca-Cola will save about $100,000 a year after ditching the old-school communication feature.
However, some employees are upset that the company chose to kill off voicemail. "People north of 40 are schizophrenic about voice mail," said Michael Schrage, a research fellow at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Sloan School of Management's Center for Digital Business. "People under 35 scarcely ever use it."
But less people are using voicemail thanks to the popularity of smartphone use and text messages.
The voicemail service has only been canned in Atlanta, but six percent of workers chose to keep it. Coca-Cola is allowing employees to keep the feature if they see it as a "business critical need."
This could be seen a good decision since many voicemails go unchecked. Maybe customers will be able to get detailed email responses instead of waiting an hour to speak to a representative and not a robot.
