Email? Send a Fax

November 14, 2007 in Personal, Web by Carsten Pötter

People are telling me that faxes have become obsolete, no one needed a fax machine anymore; email and PDF documents had replaced it. Some people even proclaimed email to be old school. Well, in the last few days I have learned that faxes are still relevant.

Last Friday I asked three dealers of beverages for price quotations for a party held in December. All of them have a website and provide a contact email address. I would have guessed that I had replies by Monday. Well, no replies until today, so I have started calling them. Responses have been quite interesting:

  1. The son of the owner is ill and the secretary is on holiday.
  2. No one has checked email since Friday. You’d better sent a fax.
  3. Oh yeah, I remember your email. Didn’t have time to reply yet.

It’s been a rather frustrating morning. The staff member of company number 2 asked me to send the email to her address again. Great! Though then she said that she couldn’t give quotations by email because the system they use didn’t support it. She had to send a fax. Aaargh!

Well, I don’t want to complain too much; all companies are small and medium-sized businesses. I would have guessed, though, that email was more common even there. I didn’t want to sign a contract, just wanted some quotes. However it makes me think if the digital divide is broadening even more. I use Twitter, IM, email, this blog, (mobile) phones, and social networks to communicate and stay in touch with people. Too far ahead or is the majority of people just thinking I was a little crazy?

Tags: secretary, Social Networks, staff member, Twitter