Life Before Caller ID
Article by Dave Smith
Caller ID is the great give away; you can screen your calls, know if the number is unfamiliar to you and have contact information stored for your return calls. While nowadays we take caller ID for granted, it wasn’t so long ago that the foot-long mobile phone and the rotary dial phones existed.
Many telephone service providers now offer caller ID included in your monthly bill, and others charge only a small fee, but most people will tell you it’s worth every penny. We’ve become so accustomed to having contact information available to us before answering that sometimes it’s hard to think of what life was like before caller ID.
Answering the “Unknown” Being able to screen numbers is only an option thanks to Caller ID. While the great “unknowns” are typically charities, political candidates, survey agencies or telemarketers, there are many doctor’s offices and therapists that will block their number if they’re calling after hours from a home residence. If you’re sure you’re not expecting a phone call, and you’re too busy to deal with solicitors you can just let the phone ring.
Keeping your Line Open Caller ID never leaves you guessing; you could be waiting on an important phone call from a friend or family and want to leave your line open. Many families and friends who live long-distance will set up a day of the week where and sometimes a specific time that they can talk. Without caller ID you could be expecting their phone call and eagerly answer to find the wrong voice on the other line.
Contact information While most professionals are accustomed to leaving their name and contact information on a voicemail, there are plenty who don’t, or completely forget. Even if a caller left their information, sometimes they spoke too quickly or quietly to be understood. Having a record of your missed calls is always good as a backup.
Faster than Voicemail If you’re in a rush and don’t feel like leaving a voicemail then the Caller ID will be enough to let your friend or family that you called. Now that we’ve become spoiled by caller ID technology, most friends and family don’t leave messages because they feel they’re redundant. There’s no longer a reason to leave a message saying “call me back” when they already see that they missed your call.
Screening the Knowns This one might go without saying, but sometimes you just plain don’t want to talk. You may have had a bad day or know the conversation will be longer than you have time for, but for whatever reason, you don’t want to talk to that specific person at that specific time. It’s hard to imagine going from no Caller ID whatsoever to the newest technology in Caller ID-Caller ID Spoofing-where you can replace your own contact information with a different number entirely.
Caller ID may not seem to have a huge impact on our lives, but when you imagine life before caller ID it’s easy to see how much it influences our daily communication and interactions with friends, family and anyone else trying to contact us.
About the Author: Dave Smith is a Marketing Associate at Itellas, a leading provider of caller ID spoofing services. For more information about call spoofing, please visit www.itellas.com.
