My question is two parts. The first is more of a rant. 1) Why don’t people in TW leave voice messages? Doctor’s office, Animal Quarantine, people EYE owe money to? And often times when we finally connect, they say they “couldn’t reach me.” But if you don’t leave a vm, how do I know you called out of the many calls I receive a day?
This might be tied to my first question. When I reach someone’s voice mail, or when I try to check my own, the greeting is actually very long. How can I set it so that after 7-8 rings it automatically goes to my personal greeting with my voice instead of the automated one?
I find it takes a long time to hear the actual voice messages.
Because voice mail is slow, inefficient, has very bad confidence on correct information transfer, and is basically obsolete?
E-mail, IM and text are much faster these days.
Consider that you can read at least 10 or more e-mails on your phone in the time it takes to pull up the beginning of one voicemail. Also consider that critical info such as numbers, addresses, instructions and lists can be recalled quickly and accurately in text form without the need to redundantly write it down as with a voicemail.
Culture.
Even 20 years ago answering machines weren’t popular. Beepers used to be worn by almost everyone before cells/smartphones.
Taiwanese want to get hold of someone NOW. They don’t wait around.