Late last week I tweeted “I hate getting calls from unknown numbers. Find it rude too. What do you do with them? It was a simple question and I felt I had a reasonable handle on it.
I received answers from both fellow tweeters and Facebook friends responding to my status update. The answers received covered the I have to take them as I serve external customers to ignore them and silence the ringer and stick the phone back in my pocket. No one responds positively to these calls.
I’ve long thought there has to be a better solution to “unknown number” interruptions. The telecom services certainly haven’t provided them. Yes we have a sort of CallerID that displays the number and that can help if you know the number in the first place. In fact the good old PSTN still makes mega dollars on “CallerID”. The mobile carriers at least make it clear to me “number calling” (if my smart phone can’t identify the caller from my address book) or “unknown” number. *67 would suggest there is still a demand for anonymity and yet shouldn’t that anonymity be crafted so it can remain yet announce the reason for the call.
Still none of these services help solve who is calling much less why. Further they don’t solve the interruption problem. Without context or a name these calls are unceremoniously dumped into voice mail. If it was urgent that’s probably a failure case. The real problem is the caller rather than the receiver is in charge.
If you had the following calling rules…
- Only present calls from people I have approved before.
- Present calls from new callers when they provide a full profile and context for the call.
- Check their reputation; do they pass simple rules?
If you could…
- Choose your own profile from one of the major directory services; Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn etc.
- Use one of these services for status updates and thus context sharing
- Use to set up and request calls and minimize the likelihood of unwanted interruptions.
Many have begun to understand that Phweet set out to solve this problem. Providing the users with access and interruption controls while enabling the ability to provide context and their own caller ID to set up the call. With the latest version including persistent Phweets we’ve shown how you can do away with the telephone number.
This is a theme I’m going to bang the keys on some more. If you have data on “interruptions”, CallerID, and how you think status and relationships should impact on access then drop me a line. I’d appreciate it.
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You have a great blog here. The best thing to when you receive such call is to reverse look up the unknown number to know whose phone number is calling you. Most times people get harassment from such calls and some criminals may just call to know if they have the actual number of their target. With reverse phone look up you can trace the number and get the name and address of the caller.