Posted
It's nothing personal - don't take offense... So your customers just don't want to talk to you anymore. No, they're not breaking up with you - they just don't like talking that much. So how do you do business with someone who doesn't want to talk?
Don't Blame the Millennials...
Far beyond the influence of "the young and hip" Millennial crowd, the etiquette of the phone has come a long way in the last ten years or so. Customers and people in general no longer want to talk on the phone. Think about it - how many times do customers endlessly text or email, dragging out the whole process, when a five minute phone call would have sufficed?
It's part of today' culture - and not just for Millennials, as some would have you believe. Admit it; you do it too! How many times have you sent out an email, playing the wait-and-see game or hoping for some delayed response, because you honestly didn't want to have that conversation over the phone? We all do it - at least some of the times.
For more about how this trend is affecting literally EVERYONE in their everyday lives, I suggest an old 2011 article from the Cultural Studies section of The New York Times, entitled Don't Call Me, I Won't Call You.
What You Can/Should Do About It...
The lesson for the modern marketer, or business person, if the term marketer makes you chafe like a set of burlap underwear, is that you absolutely MUST make a way for your customers to communicate with you WITHOUT having to talk to an actual, real-live person.
For those of us who still lament the invention of the modern-day phone tree system, this can be a bit of a tough pill to swallow, but grab your water glass, because this is what is good for you. Today's customers want absolute, easy access to whatever products or services you have. They want to be able to purchase without having a phone or in-person conversation with ANYONE. They want to have apps or online logins or live chat, or contact us forms, or absolutely ALL OF THE ABOVE, so that they never have to talk with a real-live human being (except by text or chat messaging - but only in the most extreme of circumstances).
So the real question is, where do you fall in the spectrum of total accessibility without all the "needless" human chatter? Does your website even have contact forms, online applications, click-to-buy, or live-chat suite capabilities, or are you needlessly pushing for a phone call that never comes?