The Art of Interaction – Lost in Translation – Where has Voice Gone?

Michael Paulenko on June 15, 2017

Throughout the preparation leading up to IASA, I was continually reminded that we have lost the personal touch of communication.

Whether it was in email exchanges, coordinating logistics for the conference, arranging meetings, or sending text messages to re-connect, there is no true human experience surrounding these exchanges…and they are just that – exchanges – not dialogs, nor conversations.

We have been conditioned that these exchanges are effective and efficient but, really, are they?

How often do we create a long email or text thread which eventually ends in a phone call to clarify and confirm, when we could have done that to start?

This got me rethinking times past where we had limited mobility; we had Fixed Lines to Fixed Phones and we had to focus 100 percent on the call.  I believe that phone conversations, back then, were more intimate than face-to-face. I remember looking forward to the next call so much, that often, I would check to see if there was a dial tone just in case the line was down.

I am not saying we should go all the way back to Fixed Phones, but voice communication is the vehicle that provides more context and information than an email or text message ever can. We have immediate context through tone and diction, the nature of the call, as well as the motivation for and expected outcome in seconds. It is a true human connection. 

The theme of the IASA conference was “All Systems Go”, which is a reference back to the Space Race Era, where the final countdown would be initiated having confirmation that all systems were running, synchronized, and communicating, “All Systems are Go”.

When we think about how we interact with businesses and they interact with us, there needs to be a synchronized approach to communication.  Of course, this should include email, paper, text, and voice.

Creating beautiful conversations should be part of any “All Systems Go” approach. Being able to proactively initiate personalized human language and linguistically correct dialogs to inform, educate, and allow for a call-to-action response should be central to any customers’ journey.

Voice is immediate, personal, and efficient – let’s get more voice communication back into our routines.