hazard@ihuxe.UUCP (Bryant S. Hazard) (05/17/84)
In response to someone's comment about long, boring outgoing messages: My answering machine has variable length outgoing message (voice actuated). The first outgoing message I tried was "Leave a message. *BEEP*". Many first-time callers left a message saying that they thought my machine was in need of repair. Not expecting such a short sentence, they thought the machine didn't play the beginning of the outgoing message. The other problem with such a short message was that callers often left a long silent pause before speaking. The long boring message gives them time to compose their speech. I have since changed the outgoing message to "Please leave a message after the tone.". This has put a stop to comments about the machine being broken, but callers are still taking a long time thinking about what to say. Another interesting pattern is messages in pairs. The first call has no message, the second does. My hypothesis is that the caller hangs up the first time, thinks about it and decides to call again and leave a message. Bryant S. Hazard ihnp4!ihuxe!hazard