The Importance of Written & Verbal Communication
Written communication is inarguably important, particularly in the twenty-first century where it is the predominant means of communication. That said, we shouldn’t do away with verbal communication, like countless businesses have been trying to do, or we will eventually live in a dehumanized world. We need written and verbal communication to efficiently and effectively connect with people.
More times than not these days, when I am looking for a phone number on a business’s website, I find myself leaving the site after having searched everywhere on it where a phone number used to be easily accessible and Googling “[business name] customer service phone number” to try to find the number.
If the desired phone number shows up in my search (sometimes it doesn’t!), and I call it, I am usually greeted by a robot who doesn’t seem to hear and understand me as humans do, or I encounter an excessively long wait time to speak to a human being. Other times, I am met by a recording inviting me to text a customer service representative or engage in a live chat via the business’s website to get “help.”
All of the above interactions leave me (a) feeling like I am being punished for calling the business, (b) wondering if companies have departments devoted to figuring out how to talk to their customers as little as possible or not at all, and (c) gravitating toward buying goods and services from businesses that want to talk to their customers—even if the cost of those goods and services are higher than those of businesses that avoid talking to their customers.
These negative experiences and the fact that I have an online business (due to demand for that) were the catalysts for me to start offering parents of my writing class students complimentary check-in phone calls every trimester. The calls have been very well-received and much appreciated, and I plan to do my best as a one-person operation to continue to offer them. I hope that other businesses, big and small alike, soon realize the importance of verbal communication and shift back toward a more human approach to doing business.
~ Christina Caputo
Founder & Owner of ★ W O R D S