Vile Phone Companies Still Allow Callers To Leave Voice Mail

“How could anyone think this is acceptable behavior?”

Kiryat Yam, Israel, July 7 – Residents of this sleepy Haifa suburb on the Mediterranean coast were horrified to discover that the various telecommunications companies in Israel’s market still permit callers to leave recorded messages, a primitive practice that they describe variously as “heinous,” “monstrous,” and “abominable.” They soon realized the same is true throughout the country.

The practice of leaving a voice mail, as the horrific phenomenon is known, fell out of disfavor in recent years as text-based instant mobile communication expanded and humans across the globe realized what horrors they had inflicted on one another by leaving rambling, recorded messages. However, Israeli communications firms, sometimes considered leaders and innovators in the tech world, appear not to have absorbed that lesson, and still by default allow a caller to leave such a monstrosity for the intended recipient.

“It’s… it’s… it’s unconscionable,” breathed Nur Mali, 36, a father of three. “How could anyone think this is acceptable behavior?”

Analysts offered several explanations for the companies’ behavior. “Some of the most loyal customers a company has are older and less open to change,” said Ta Koli, an analyst with Toeva Communications. “Maintaining voice mail capability is an intuitive way to keep them happy. The thing is, keeping customers happy has never been a priority for any of these companies.”

“I think that’s partly the point,” offered Gezel Zman, a consultant for telecom companies. “You have to remember that customer satisfaction isn’t the primary goal – or any goal at all, really – for a telecommunications company. That’s why they always offer better terms to incoming subscribers than existing, ones that are more likely to have shown some loyalty. Making voice mail capabilities the default is just one of myriad ways a phone company has of driving home to the customer that at any given moment, the provider can make his or her life miserable.”

Some companies take the approach even further, notes Zman. “It’s a piece of cake to simply cancel a customer’s voice mail, but simply canceling the voice mail on request would make things too easy for the mark – er, the customer. What we see happening instead is if a customer wants to cancel voice mail, he has to send a fax to a specific number. Nobody uses fax machines anymore, and that’s exactly what Cellcom, Bezeq, and the others have in mind. the customer has to spend time finding a Luddite friend or business with a working fax. Then they have to use the damn thing, which is no guarantee of success. Then the document – which has to contain certain information to be processed properly, and about which the companies are intentionally vague – might not even get through, because the receiving machine is constantly busy from all the other transmissions being directed to it out of spite for the customer.”

“Of course in terms of sheer egregiousness, these companies have nothing on local governments,” he added.