Reactions to voicemail entry

So there were some reactions/criticizms after my last entry about the lack of vociemail in India:

"Nate, so you're telling me that the CEO of IndiaIT doesn't have voicemail?!"

No, that's exactly true. First off, I have never called the CEO's cell phone directly so I can't say whether he has voicemail on his cell phone or not, but I'm gonna find out. He does, however, have a personal assistant who takes messages for him. If you were to call the number on his business card, you would get his secratary, Malliga, who would take a message and relay it to the Big Man. There are probably 15 people in the entire company of 55,000 who have personal secretaries (1 in every 3,700 or so), so they reap the benefits of voicemail without technically having the service. Everyone else is out of luck.

"Nate, my name is Scott and I live and work with you in India and I think that the lack of voicemail is partially made up for with SMSing and the practice of calling those from whom you've missed calls."

While Scott has a point, I don't believe that these alternate methods of leaving message are sufficient. First off, if you are a busy manager towards the top of a pyramid that is the horendous bureacracy of a big business, it is very difficult to call back every person who tried to call you when you were busy. If I were that person, I might operate in a few ways. I might think that if it the message is really that important, they will call back and find me when I'm available to talk. Also, not all phone calls require two-way communication. Let me put it this way, if I'm calling someone to remind them to do something, as I do several hours of each day, a voicemail would suffice. A return call is not necessarily required, so from an efficiency standpoint, the lack of voicemail adds a layer of communication which can mean an additional day or two to create action from communication. Creating action is, after all, the goal of business communication.


Despite my criticisms, I will say this: the mobile connectivity abilities in India are FAR more reliable than that of the US. I think about 75% of Northwestern University buildings do not get service indoors, yet in India, where practically every other facet of infrastructure is at least 30 years behind, I have never had a domestic call cut out. I have had a few international calls cut, but I've noticed that those are mostly to the US, where I can attribute the call failure to outdated telecommunications technology still being used.

It's not that India would not benefit from voicemail, or that the technology isn't available. The reason for the absense is, as one reader justly pointed out, the lack of demand for the function within India. It's that simple. No barrier exists, but neither does the desire. Hopefully MNC's in India, as well as blogs, will spark the revolution.