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Friday, September 12, 2008
Communication Technology enabling or constraining the Organization? (Ch 12)
The authors bring an interesting point when they talk about communication technology and how it is both enabling and constraining at the same time. The focus from the authors is on web sites and the Internet, but the same can be said about phone trees. I am sure many people have experienced frustration when trying to reach a representative from a company by phone. People have to go through so many steps that something I wonder if the objective is to convince people to hung up. Obviously, as the authors state, the same can be said about FAQ. A few months ago I wanted to contact Yahoo customer service and could not find the link to send them an email. I eventually did but it is interesting to think how technology has both allowed and limited communication at the same time.
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3 comments:
When I am faced with this dilemma I am often happy that the internet exists. I would rather look around on a company’s website to find a contact email than sit on the endless loop of the phone trying to reach a customer services representative. The one fall back of that system though is that often when you email a complaint or a problem the response you receive is a pre-determined, pre-written general response that might apply to your issue but does not have the exact answer.
We have this system at my work. Whenever we have a technical question we can open a case with the Global Technical Response Center online on our own or we can call them. I almost always open it online because then it is typically directed automatically to the team that can help me whereas the people who answer the phone might have the answers to a general problem but not more in depth. Then they just open a case online for me anyways and I have to wait another four days until the real right person contacts me. It is all just too difficult.
I agree with you and crives about the phone tree. If I have to contact a company via phone, I try to go directly to a human if possible. The Seattle Times has run several stories on contacting well-known companies and always publishes the short cut on how to bypass the lengthy phone tree and talk with someone. So workarounds go a long way toward freeing people from the domination of tech systems.
I've found learning management systems such as blackboard to be more constraining than enabling. They're okay for some things, like grades and quizzes. But for class communication, there are so many other options that are better, such as listservs, blogs, and wikis.
I agree with Crives comments. I work in a IT organization and multiple times in a week we have to open support calls. We open them online on the vendor's site and after the case is opened we raise the urgency by one level and someone contacts us in a reasonable time and the person most of the times is someone with knowledge in resolving the issue.
In line with Professor's comment on blackboard. I completely hate the system, when professors use that to send class e-mail, we have one more thing to check in a already hectic day with work and class. At least once a semester I miss something important. I like it better when they use mysjsu to send emails as it at least alerts you at your e-mail address on file that there is a new message.
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