A New York Times blogger’s crusade to take on that country’s four largest mobile operators has shown how effective mass public campaigns can be.
David Pogue started a campaign a few weeks ago to get AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile and Verizon to eliminate (or make optional) their recorded instructions that people hear when leaving or accessing voicemails.
We are all familiar with these messages which often play after a user’s personal greeting. They go something like this: “At the tone, please record your message. When you have finished recording, you may hang up, or press 1 for more options.”
And also when retrieving a message: “You have 15 messages. To listen to your messages, press 1."
Pogue calls these 15-second recordings “time-wasting, redundant, airtime-eating”, adding: “Good heavens: it’s 2009. WE KNOW WHAT TO DO AT THE BEEP.”
Hence he launched the Take Back the Beep campaign which has now taken on a life of its own, says Pogue in his latest update. “It’s been written up on 28,032 blogs; I’ve done a number of radio and podcast interviews; and the carriers report that ‘thousands and thousands’ of complaints have poured in.”
And some of the carriers have responded positively.
Sprint now enables customers to remove the messages, AT&T has promised to actively explore how to shorten its voicemail message and T-Mobile is taking the issue into consideration in its planning.
Only Verizon has not yet addressed the issue.
I see Pogue’s point – waiting through pointless instructions does extend the call time and hence would pocket carriers more cash.
I have tested this on some local numbers and got to leave a message straight after the personal greeting. However, on others you do get instructions such as: “When you have finished recording your message, hang up or press hash for more options.”
Do we really need to be told to hang up after and what other options are there?
Retrieving voicemail messages don’t seem to be overly convoluted either. With mine I get to hear messages without needing to press 1, but I think this may be a set-up option…
Is this an issue for you? Let us know – maybe we need our own Take Back the Beep campaign.
Meanwhile, Pogue’s campaign does show what results collective action can have. As he says: “It looks as though, by focusing our unhappiness and organizing our resistance, we’re going to wind up creating real change in the world. And it’s a great feeling.”
Creating change is precisely the aim of the local Drop the Rate, Mate campaign.
If you have not yet joined the 7,000 Kiwis who have registered their support for the Government to take action on reducing mobile rates, do so now at: www.droptherate.org.nz.