Useless Information Requested

I had to phone my parent's mobile this morning. Without boring you with the details, there's a family Xmas function on in Singleton tomorrow and I can't remember whether the secret santa present limit is $10 or $15. And I also know that signed copies of my book, or $15 vouchers I have left over don't count ... anyway, that's irrelevant.

We normally don't need to leave messages because of the reason most people don't leave messages. They call you (or the other way round), you know they called and you call them back. Life is so simple sometimes. But something has changed, as their messagebank is no longer activated.

Instead, there's a voice recording that you'd most likely be familiar with, telling you that if you hold, a text message will be sent with my number letting them know I've called. Standard call fees apply etc. etc.

Okay, however the phone rang out, and my number will be lodged on their phone, letting them know I've called. "1 Missed Call .... Craig" ... Why do they need to go into text messages to find out that I tried to call. They already know that!

Likewise, sometimes members will contact me to let me know there's a problem with one of the listed competitions. As a courtesy I will let the promoter know, and as you'd realise most websites don't publish phone numbers.

On some occasions the requested information is so large I expect to have a million dollar loan approval thrown in for my efforts. Why would a website request my full street address on their feedback form?

I can't even type in NA or Sydney anymore, because thanks to technology the website checks my address and informs me there's no such thing as "none of your business" street.

Plus, why date of birth? Why do they need my specific date of birth if it doesn't involve a birthday present somewhere down the track.

What do businesses do with this seemingly useless information? My guess is nothing, however there's so many standard web forms available today that the extra throw-ins just seem like a good idea at the time.

Business should be all about making it easy to contact with you. People these days have a habit of putting useless information in the too-hard basket. And I happen to be one of them.

Yours Comp-letely,

Craig Seitam 27/11/09

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