Maybe I’m not asking the right questions, but I consistently find that I get “Yes” answers in these calls, that turn out to actually be “No” in practice.

I think the problem is that we rarely want to know “can you meet this use case”, but rather “how well can you meet this use case”, and that’s hard to assess without putting your hands on the software.

Which is to say that the quality of the sales person matters.

If your sales department is staffed by people who got hired on Monday, and are on the phone by Friday, then frankly they're not worth much.

I've seen the opposite though where sales folk know more about the software than support folk. They're equipped to help you with choices, but also understand limits and high-cost areas. Yes you absolutely can get Custom Reports, but we absolutely charge for that. And the data you're looking for is on this built-in report....

Dealing with a good salesperson, who knows their stuff, and understands that truth and trust are important, is an amazing thing.

It's definitely a generational thing. I've been spammed so utterly often that I simply do not answer my phone for a non-contact (or the inevitable interview phone call. But less often with video calls these days). If it's important enough to contact me, it's important enough to leave a voice mail.

I don't really do these sale pitches often, but it's a similar mentality for a different reason. I simply want anything communicated in writing in case they try to say yes to put a foot in the door, but the small details say no.

I'm not the guy you asked, but I also basically keep my phone in Do Not Disturb mode 24/7, meaning no calls, no texts, no notifications, ever. I choose when I have time to look at my messages, not the other party.

I'm not a doctor, and even if I was, I'll never be able to help them purely over the phone if they are "lying bleeding somewhere" and I'm not around. If my house is burning down and I'm away, what am I going to do about it remotely that a phone call will solve? I'm not a firefighter and I can't splash water over RF. If something happens at my kid's school, I'm not there, and even if I was, I probably wouldn't be able to do anything about it.

That being said, if someone really, really thinks that I can somehow help them over the phone in an emergency, despite my number not being 9-1-1, certain family and friend's numbers I allow to punch through DND and reach me.

My phone is on silent 100% of the time. (With small exceptions when I'm expecting a call.)

I might like to be informed of emergencies, but I'm not a first responder. If you are bleeding phone 911, not me.

To be fair, my mom sends my wife a message to tell me to "check my phone" if she needs me :)

Each person finds their own level of intrusion they want from their device. I've picked mine. You pick yours.

Not particularly, no. But I imagine they would simply say "Johnny it's X, call me. It's urgent". (Scammers are bad, but I've never been tricked with that kind of line).

If I'm being frank, that extra minute for me to respond probably won't change their fate if they are indeed bleeding out somewhere.

Yeah, if you answer calls from random numbers something unsettling usually happens like some Indian guy yelling at me about how the IRS wants their money and the cops are on the way to my house (punchline: he can make it stop if I give him my bank account information). Unfortunately, it works on the kind of people who answer phone calls.

One could ensure their spouse or child knows about 911 in America or similar service in other countries, which is, of course, what should be called in such a circumstance firstly anyway. Also, people generally have such numbers as contacts in their phone ... I don't know why I'm explaining it; this just seems like common sense ...

Emergency calls often come from people NOT in your contacts. That's why you provide emergency contacts on forms. If something goes wrong at work for example, someone from the office would call, not your spouse themselves.

And how will that not be important enough to leave a voice message about?

blue-collar, unemployed (NEET, even), my oldest kids, PhDs i've known personally for decades, white collar workers - an incomplete list of everyone i called in 2024 with a full voicemailbox.

i try to tell people about the "two calls in a minute lets it go thru" feature because as of yet the autodialers don't know about it or have it implemented.

They're probably not also people who don't answer their phone, preferring either to have a voice message or nothing (because it isn't important) then.

I do the same as commenter up-thread, my voicemail inbox is empty. Sometimes I let a call ring out and then listen to the message immediately, I just don't want to have to deal with it synchronously. Then if it's 'I have a number of opportunities that seem like a great fit for you' I can just delete it and move on with my day, not have to try to say no-bye politely before hanging up, for example.

Someone with a full inbox is more likely someone who does the opposite - they'll never listen to their messages because they want to talk to someone, you'd have to call them back anyway so no harm it's full. (Or they'd call you from the missed call, not because they heard your message.)

> Or they'd call you from the missed call, not because they heard your message.

people with professional and PhD with full mailboxes do this, with jitter of up to hours.

the last full voicemail i hit i was called back nearly immediately, and they said "what, i just delete all my voicemails, if i call it says no new no saved"

There's a reason i'm harping on specific elements so much, because i don't think voicemail is magic, i guess.

do these people have voicemail boxes like this (nsfw language, a bit. idk. it's art.): https://nextcloud.projectftm.com/index.php/s/NSFW_voicemail_...

I don't really disagree. The problem is outreach when you're clearly mostly researching something whether to do with computers or something else. One travel company is particular was pretty aggressively reaching out because I downloaded a couple brochures.