Re: Beware: T-Mobile's Voicemail Paging Trap

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: "Bob Frankston" <Bob19-0501 () bobf frankston com>
Date: October 26, 2008 8:52:53 PM EDT
To: <dave () farber net>, "'ip'" <ip () v2 listbox com>
Cc: "'Lauren Weinstein'" <lauren () vortex com>
Subject: RE: [IP] Beware: T-Mobile's Voicemail Paging Trap

 I already have my G1 and will probably standardize on it for my  
family. But this problem illustrates the frustrating limitations of  
Android – as open as it is you are constrained by the cellular network  
and its architecture. Unlike email where you can process your own  
email (or choose who can do it for you), with the G1 you are stuck  
with a carrier doing all the initial processing. It’s not just that  
you can’t control message-taking – you also can’t implement your own  
spam filters and do other processing.

And what happens when you run into T-Mobile’s data policy that will  
replace their 1GB cap? You can’t even be sure you are using 3G or Wi- 
Fi for a particular bit – worse if you are relying on the cloud for  
caching. And there’s also the confusing messaging policy – IM, SMS and  
MMS should all be messaging over the data connection but the latter  
two are high priced services whereas Internet messaging has no  
additional charges. And, of course, MMS and SMS can’t be forwarded…

Still, as I said, it’s the best of a bad situation.

-----Original Message-----
From: David Farber [mailto:dave () farber net]
Sent: Sunday, October 26, 2008 19:58
To: ip
Subject: [IP] Beware: T-Mobile's Voicemail Paging Trap



Begin forwarded message:

From: Jeremy Bornstein <jeremy () jeremy org>
Date: October 26, 2008 5:19:32 PM EDT
To: David Farber <dave () farber net>
Cc: ip <ip () v2 listbox com>
Subject: Re: [IP] Beware: T-Mobile's Voicemail Paging Trap

The reason for this is obvious, right?  The more things they get to
say before you can (easily) leave a message, the more airtime they can
charge you for.  The customer-friendly thing to do would be to play
the customer's voicemail greeting immediately, followed by a beep.  Of
course hardly anybody does that now, because that would be a clear
failure to fully monetize customer interactions.

-Jeremy


On Sun, Oct 26, 2008 at 04:25:49PM -0400, David Farber wrote:
>
>
> Begin forwarded message:
>
>> From: Lauren Weinstein <lauren () vortex com>
>> Date: October 26, 2008 12:47:53 PM EDT
>> To: dave () farber net
>> Cc: lauren () vortex com
>> Subject: Beware: T-Mobile's Voicemail Paging Trap
>>
>>
>>
>>                 Beware: T-Mobile's Voicemail Paging Trap
>>
>>               http://lauren.vortex.com/archive/000448.html
>>
>>
>> Greetings.  Longtime users of T-Mobile may already be familiar with
>> this issue that I'm about to describe, but with many persons now
>> moving to T-Mobile from AT&T to get hold of the Google Android G1
>> phone, lots of these new subscribers may be in for a disappointing
>> surprise, especially if you use your phone for business purposes and
>> rely on a clear and concise outgoing voicemail announcement.
>>
>> One of the basic rules of human interface design is that you don't
>> want to ever offer callers options that don't actually work as
>> described.  T-Mobile violates this concept big time for the
>> overwhelming majority of calls into their voicemail system, and in a
>> manner that could have potentially very serious results.
>>
>> The problem is essentially simple.  All callers who hear your
>> personalized voicemail outgoing message are then offered the
>> opportunity to send a numeric page ("press 5").  Unfortunately, this
>> paging prompt is presented to everyone hearing your voicemail
>> message, *even when you have paging turned off* -- which is in
>> fact the default state.
>>
>> This is more than an annoyance to callers who sit through additional
>> verbiage waiting for a beep, it can result in misunderstandings and
>> worse:
>>
>>   "I entered my number for a page -- I needed to reach you right
>>    away!  Why the blazes didn't you call back?"
>>
>>   "Oh, I have paging turned off."
>>
>>   "Then why the hell did the system offer me a page and have me
>>    waste my time entering my call back number?  Who designed that
>>    blasted thing?  The Three Stooges?"
>>
>> Actually, that's unfair to Larry, Moe, and Curly -- I'm sure they
>> could have done a better job of voicemail system design than
>> T-Mobile's vendor.
>>
>> This isn't rocket science.  Don't jerk callers around telling them
>> that they can page and then put them through the motions of entering
>> call back numbers in a useless exercise reminiscent of the Mad Tea
>> Party from "Alice in Wonderland," especially since we can be
>> sure that only a tiny percentage of subscribers ever actually want
>> to use paging at all.
>>
>> It's notable that AT&T Mobility does this right.  You can always
>> configure an AT&T cellular line so that if paging is off, there is
>> no prompting for paging call backs.  In fact, AT&T's cellular
>> voicemail system can be configured just to play your outgoing
>> message and beep without any prompting verbiage at all being added
>> onto the end -- which is the ideal situation in most cases.
>>
>> It's incredible for T-Mobile to operate a voicemail system that
>> makes it impossible for them to avoid confusing callers with false
>> prompting options and actions that are at best ineffectual -- and
>> can easily lead to serious problems indeed when assumed paging
>> actions never actually take place.
>>
>> Achtung T-Mobile!  You pride yourself on your customer service.  But
>> this behavior of your voicemail is sloppy, consumer-unfriendly, and
>> in some situations perhaps even dangerous.  You can do much better.
>>
>> --Lauren--




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