The Expert Podcast

Maybe this is why you can't get anybody on the phone at a company for customer service or even sales or follow-up on orders. It's an article from Business Insider, where at first it sounded like something different: this woman charges $480 an hour to help Millennials be able to talk on the phone. They have fears of talking on the phone. At first, I was thinking, you know, maybe they have a tough time talking to their relatives or their friends. But no, this is a business article that talks about how employees are so used to smartphones that don't actually do phone calls—they do text, apps, and social media—and so many younger workers lack the confidence to speak on the phone at work.

So you hire somebody to do customer service or to work in a company, and they're unable to communicate on the phone with customers or potential customers. All this time, we were thinking that the only reason there was no customer service is that the companies didn't want to spend the money to have customer service reps. Well, that may be part of it, but it may be more than that—it may be that it's tough to find people who are even capable of talking on the phone.

Look, if the market is to charge $500 an hour to train people just to talk on the phone, that gives you an indication right there of what the deficiency in that skill is. Look, I don't know if trainers to build jet engines charge $500. And according to the article, Gen Z never had the skills given to them. In older generations, the phone was on the wall, and everybody was taught to answer it and make calls at a young age. Now we have several generations that were never taught anything about talking on the phone, and people have removed phones from their homes.

It's a big deal. Corporate workshops for this trainer cost $3,500, and this has been verified from invoices, so it's not just made up—this is for real. Look, we have services you can see on our webpage where we offer consulting for consumers who want to get customer service about certain subjects for a fee. But on the other hand, companies are paying hundreds of dollars an hour to try to get employees who can talk on the phone.

What are your thoughts on this? Does this maybe match what you are running into as a consumer? Here's why it's important. As you know, as a consumer, you can't build a relationship by email because it's not back and forth, and you're not hearing the tone of voice. How many times have you had an email or text conversation, and things got sideways because the context, the tone, or something between the lines wasn't picked up on? Maybe somebody interpreted something differently than how you meant it in written text, by email, or by SMS.

So maybe this is the final answer to solving this: hiring consultants to train Gen Z and Millennials on how to talk on the phone to customers. In the meantime, tell us what your thoughts are, and look at other options on our website, teleadvice.com.