Is it disrespectful to call someone instead of answering their email?

Submitted ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩ by ⁨_number8_@lemmy.world⁩ to ⁨nostupidquestions@lemmy.world⁩

I tried getting season tickets for a local baseball team but the ordering system was quite literally designed for old people and was driving me insane:

there’s no actual order page online, just this ‘contact us for info!’ button where you have to write them a bespoke little email - like, to a person, not just a form to fill out - and I did that and the dude ///called me//// and didn’t answer when I tried to call back — why for the love of God take this to the phone?? I emailed them!!! I didn’t even want to email them, i wanted to fill out a webpage and put my credit card in! and they throw up all these smarmy sAlEsMaN roadblocks, like jesus man

like is this seriously meant to be like ‘oh that’s such good customer service’ to someone?

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Comments

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Donebrach@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
Guessing they just don’t have the means or technical no how to setup an online ordering system, doubt it’s anything malicious.

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- richieadler@lemmy.myserv.one ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  
  ~~no ~~ know- how
  
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  - Donebrach@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    You’re goddamn right.
    
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- TonyTonyChopper@mander.xyz ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  phone calls aren’t more secure
  
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  - Donebrach@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    The likelihood of a phone call being intercepted is vastly less likely than data transmitted over email. Also what do you even know about telephone technology you damn raccoon.
    
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Sanctus@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
If I email you and you call me instead of emailing back I’m screening your call. Just send an email back, I would have called you if it needed to be a phone call.

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- snooggums@kbin.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  Some things just lead to a bunch of questions that are annoyingly slow to sort out via email. Or the sender is clearly starting with a wrong assumption that will make any text communication come across the wrong way and a phone call could sort that out quickly.
  
  Do you respond well to an email reply that asks to do a call instead?
  
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  - Sanctus@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    Asking for a call to clarify would be a much better approach. I should preface that I am in IT. My workplace had no help tickets or IT help voip lines when I got here. I worked very hard to be able to take these calls all day. So I have less time for phone calls than the average office employee. I’m like Help Desk 1-3 and SME for a few programs at my workplace.
    
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  - Fal@yiffit.net ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    This is such a boomer comment. Literally nothing is better as a phone call. Having to deal with shitty connections, accents, not being able to think for a moment to prepare a reply, not being able to reference anything, not being able to proof read your response. It’s absurd.
    
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  - Arthur_Leywin@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    Making an appointment for a call is the way I would do it. Otherwise I’ll just assume it’s spam because most calls are.
    
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rustydrd@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
In your case, it doesn’t like someone being rude, more like a poorly designed system. In general, I think it’s courteous to warn people about it. Like when I receive an email that would require a lengthy response, I could write “Easier to do this on the phone. Can I call you later?” and that’s always been fine.

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SnuggleSnail@ani.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
If you write someone an email and include your phone number then it is completely okay for them to call you back.

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Raiderkev@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
When I signed up for season tickets for the raiders, I had to talk to some goober salesman on a “virtual tour” over zoom or w/e. I tried like hell to just have him send me a price sheet, and a map so I could pick my seats. I even worked for the team in the past and contacted my old boss to tell him this was super inconvenient. He insisted that that’s the only way to do it, and they don’t share price sheets with customers. It’s boomer sales tactics, and good luck telling them that most people don’t want to talk to a guy for a simple transaction.

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RightHandOfIkaros@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
Personally, if I send an email to someone and they call me, that makes me suspicious of what theyre going to say. Why don’t they want to send an email back? What do they not want a paper trail of?

If someone (especially management) at my job asks me to do something, I always tell them to send me an email (via company email) telling me what they want specifically. This way, in case anyone in the future has a problem, I can reference the email and who sent it to me.I also will always respond when I complete the task so that I can reference how long the task took me to complete. As you can imagine this means I do nearly no meaningless or legally questionable tasks.

Naturally, I have done this in my personal life as well. Any conversation I feel is very important, I send a text or even an email. I once had someone respond by phone only, and this person was verbally abusive. I politely told them that any further correspondence must be done by text or email. Sadly, they never apologized, and have never spoken to me since.

So is it rude? I think it depends on the context and the person.

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ThrowawayPermanente@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
To a young person, maybe. To a boomer, not at all.

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HubertManne@kbin.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
ok so I was going to say no but really the issue here is a bussiness should be consistant in communication and have a decent amount of communication options. So the person should have emailed you to schedule a time to call or give you his number to call.

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Mouselemming@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
Are you 100% sure this is even the correct box office for those tickets? Because it sounds a bit sketchy to me. Especially when they wouldn’t answer your phone call.

If you are going to have to go as low-tech as playing phone tag, maybe go to the actual box office or team office and get face-to-face with a person.

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RBWells@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
No, but the Contact Us information should have been clearer. Like “No online ticket orders. To order tickets, call us at 111-111-1111”

I don’t answer my phone so calling me would not work, and yes I would find it annoying.

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jbrains@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
Maybe it’s the best they know how to do.

Disrespectful or not, if you don’t like it, then you don’t like it. You might just email them about your experience and tell them what you want to have happen. Give them a chance to do that for you.

And ultimately, which do you value more: the season tickets or your preferred way of buying them? As far as I can tell, there’s no wrong answer, but merely your preference.

Good luck.

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JohnDClay@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
If it’s a complicated matter that could use a lot of back and forth, sometimes it’s expedient to call or share a screen rather than send a dozen emails back and forth.

But that doesn’t at all seem to be the case here. Even the email seems very unnecessary. Maybe they were trying to upsell you or something? I really don’t like it when you can only order something by calling rather than on the website, but maybe they think they can charge more or sell more if you talk to a sales person?

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orcrist@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
As mentioned, this sounds like a scam. If a business doesn’t have a working phone number, I would not dream of paying them by email or telephone. If you’re sure it’s real, just be sure to only pay them in person at the stadium.

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Nemo@midwest.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
To an office, no.

To an individual, yes. Don’t call me.

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HamSwagwich@showeq.com ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
My favorite is when some dumb ass company asks me to fax something. Like bitch…I haven’t had a land line in over 20 years, much less a fax machine. There is this new thing called email, perhaps you’ve heard of it?

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- knightly@pawb.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  I don’t trust any company that still relies on easily-tapped fax lines whenevery doctor or tax office I’ve used has had a secure online portal for uploading documents for years.
  
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- Alexstarfire@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  You can fax stuff online.
  
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- stinerman@midwest.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  This is because people believe that faxes are “unhackable” because it’s just scanning a piece of paper and transmitting it to another machine that prints it out. They never think that you can photoshop a thing and then print it out and then fax it.
  
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Smokeydope@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
No.

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krayj@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
If answering the email requires writing a book to anticipate all the possible questions or options or complications that might come up, then no it’s not disrespectful to call someone instead.

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Dagwood222@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
No.

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JigglySackles@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
Disrespectful, no. Annoying af on a personal level, yes. If I email, it’s because I have time for that not your stupid rambling stories, I want a paper trail, and I don’t want to deal with people in conversation. I blatantly do not answer calls at work when I am emailing someone and if they ask if they can call, I tell them no and to please use email.

I can understand them calling in your case. I wouldn’t like it, but sometimes it’s just faster to talk things out. So long as you don’t get a rambler.

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s_s@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
In MLB, Season tickets are usually handled by an agent from the team’s ticket office. Some MiLB clubs might do the same.

It’s supposed to make the experience feel more premium.

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HobbitFoot@thelemmy.club ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
It depends. For some groups of people, it isn’t considered rude to switch methods of contacting people if one person sees a need for it; this is especially prevalent with older people.

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AlwaysNowNeverNotMe@kbin.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
Typically this practice is about reducing liability. You get no written confirmation.

I would like to say it's how scammy little outfits work, but some industries are simply incapable of managing the level of risk associated with being held to the word of every one of their employees.

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Kusimulkku@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
Dunno but if you’re in a hurry I don’t think it matters

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