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Insurance Industry News from ProgramBusiness.com

Technologically Rude?"Opportunity paged me, beeped me, linked me, e-mailed me, faxed me, and spammed me. But I was expecting it to knock!" - Cartoonist Randy Glasbergen

The difference between "the old days" and modern times is the boom in communications electronics. However, for many, it just allows more ways to be rude. Besides in person, how many ways were there to bother or ignore (my pet peeve) someone before the Internet? The telephone, US mail, fax machine, or perhaps hand gestures in traffic were the weapons available, and were utilized proficiently. Remember the junk mail list fiascos in the eighties? If we had only known how much worse it could get.

At least advertising that comes in the mail can be good for something. I always use them for packing, and sometimes for making fire logs in the summer. But none of that was porn, and it was easy to discard without reading. None of this applies to today's junk mail. I was actually amazed this morning when I realized that out of 15 messages (aka "spam") in my Hotmail Junk Mail folder, all of which I received overnight, only one included dirty pictures. The rest wanted me to work at home (hey, we already do on our ASP servers), borrow money, graduate from college or just plain shop.

Electronically, there is no safe haven. I have seen spam, the common term for unwanted or un-solicited messages, on cell phones that include messaging and even on text-based pagers. It's only a matter of time before telemarketers use your pager to have you call them.

However, this isn't an article about spam, but about rudeness, something that has increased along with our methods of communication. It seems that many people are comfortable in being rude or disrespectful when they are not face to face. There is no immediate accountability with electronic rudeness, no raised voices to be wary of, indeed, no imminent danger of retaliation of any kind.

Business suffers greatly due to the loss of respect that has permeated the Internet. Staff may think nothing of blowing off steam in an email to a business partner or client. That lack of accountability is an illusion in corporate America, and clients and partners are lost every day by a disrespectful reply or request. People who wouldn't dream of telling a client in person to "get a life" or "go away" routinely do so via email.

As I mentioned, I do have an irritation that affects me on a daily basis at work. Those who ignore my email or voice mail messages cause me great anxiety. That includes vendors, partners and clients. I don't necessarily need answers to my questions or solutions to my problems in the few minutes after I send them off. What I desperately need is acknowledgement. I want them to tell me they got my message and understand what I wrote or left them. If they don't understand, they need to let me know so I can re-phrase or add more information. If they do understand, I would like to know that too, for I am ready to move on to my next issue. I'll gladly leave this one and return to it when appropriate.

Let me give an example. A client calls and asks if a particular program that we host can be updated. It's a question I can't answer, so I call the vendor (no longer a current vendor) and leave a voice mail asking the question. I get no response within a couple of hours, so I call back and am told that person is indeed in the office. I ask for a different person, and then leave another voice mail. No return call, so I email both of them and wait for the reply. Not only do I not get a reply, but not even a "delivery receipt" telling me that they actually got the messages. This means they probably have the auto-response manually turned off. I get back to my client and let them know I'm still trying. The next day, I actually talked to a staffer who knew the answer, which was no, and I ask her if the other two ever got my messages.
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