Some people don’t like change. Change can be scary. Just look at the slugfest that was healthcare reform. And that bit of change happened to change so much in the course of a year that I stopped paying attention after a few months.
But even the smallest change can face big opposition.
Take Google Voice, for instance. When my friend Ben Woodall invited me to try it out, I instantly fell in love. The feature I really liked was receiving a text message which gave a preview of the voicemail a caller had just left me. Sure, the voice-to-text translation was far from perfect, but at least I could get a general idea of why someone was calling without having to check my voicemail at that very second.
However, there was one small problem with Google Voice. They had changed one little detail in an attempt to make voicemail function better. Google had added an extra prompt. Rather than have one prompt for you to leave all of your information, Google had a prompt for you to leave your name and then another for you to leave your message.
No big deal. No big change, right? That’s what I thought. But the problem was that people ignored the name prompt, so rather than simply stating a name, people started leaving a message. After a few seconds, they were cut off and prompted to leave a message, so they started their messages all over again.
One person informed me that my voicemail was “messed up” because she had to leave her message twice. I could hear people’s frustration in their voicemail messages. They were confused by one small change. So I eventually decided to drop Google Voice. And it’s a shame because I feel that Google offered a damn good service, but people couldn’t accept the change.
But I don’t blame them. Voicemail prompts are routine. It’s a simple service, why complicate it? Honestly, we don’t even need voicemail prompts, we already know what to do. And that’s why people don’t pay attention to the prompts; it’s much more efficient not to listen when you already know what’s being said.
Before my experience with Google Voice, I didn’t realize how much confusion even small changes could cause. It sounded so simple in theory, but in practice, it bombed.
So, now it’s your turn. Can you think of any other small changes that have caused more trouble than they should have?
*** UPDATE! ***
Ben recently informed me that I can opt to drop the name prompt on my Google Voice. I should have known to ask Ben about this. Although my dropping Google Voice was obviously unnecessary, the lesson of this post is still relevant. Thanks, Ben!
