Voice Messages Are Evil? Ask Those Who Work in Manufacturing

The other day, I came across a post in a professional social network (you know which one) from a girl who actively promotes her business process optimization services. She passionately argued that phone calls and voice messages are a relic of the past. In her world, all communication should be written: CRM, trackers, corporate messengers – and no "blah-blah" on the phone. Her argument was some study showing that the brain processes written text faster than spoken speech.

On that point, I actually agree. When I'm sitting in a hotel after a shift, going through emails, planning my next trips – writing is more convenient. It doesn't interrupt, you can re-read it, you can think through your answer. But with everything else – I couldn't disagree more.

I'm a service specialist, but when I arrive at a site, I become the team leader, responsible for the work. Over 20 years, I've visited dozens of plants: metallurgy, petrochemicals, mechanical engineering, food processing, energy. I have to talk to dispatchers, foremen, shop managers, and in critical situations – even plant directors. And everywhere I see the same picture: communication on the shop floor runs on two tracks. The first – when time allows: requests in the system, emails, approvals. Everything is orderly, digitised, can be found later. The second – the good old telephone. And it's just as important, because manufacturing isn't an office – things constantly go wrong: pressure drops, a sensor fails, a drive burns out. Every minute of downtime costs a fortune, and sometimes it's about people's safety.

And here I can't imagine anyone opening a CRM and waiting for approval in such a situation. By the time they do that, the problem will have escalated into a disaster. This is exactly where voice messages and calls become the only working tool.

Real-Life Examples: From the Shop Floor to the Highway and Back

Let me start with simple ones, so even those who've never worked in operations can understand.

A metallurgical plant. An operator in the shop runs out of thermocouples – consumables for monitoring molten steel temperature. Normally, the foreman calls the warehouse: "Get them here NOW!" – and within 10 minutes a courier arrives. Without a call – it's a CRM request, waiting, approval. But the melt is ongoing, the steel cools down – rejects, downtime. Who do we blame? The "efficiency manager" who banned calls and voice messages?

A driver on the highway. Breakdown, accident, or just a massive traffic jam. Should he stop, write a detailed message to management while cars honk around him? Or type while driving, risking his life? No. He hits the call button, talks for 20 seconds – and gets instructions. Done. Voice messages aren't even needed here – just a short call.

But there are situations where the stakes are much higher.

Three Real Cases Where a Phone Call Saved Equipment and Lives

Night shift at a chemical plant. A large hazardous facility in the city centre. At 3 a.m., the SCADA system crashed and communication between the control room and the nitric acid shop was lost. The distance was only about 100 metres, but without monitoring data, you can't run the process. The staff switched to emergency mode: all information was relayed by phone. Management, right up to the director, was alerted by calls – nobody even thought about messengers. In the morning, once the problem was fixed, the data was calmly entered into the corporate system. But what if the dispatcher had started filing a CRM request? At 3 a.m., while someone is being woken up, approvals are being sought… The process would have stopped – and that's not just losses, it's a threat to the city. Voice messages wouldn't have worked here either – immediate contact was needed.

Fuel depot for military transport aviation on a public holiday. Communication between the dispatcher, the automated monitoring system, and the CRM service workers was lost. By phone, the company's entire management, including the head office in another city, was alerted. Because of the need for an immediate fix, repair crews were called. If all notifications had been in writing – no one would have come, the holiday would have dragged on, and aircraft refuelling would have stopped. And that's a matter of national importance. Again – a call, not a voice message or an email, worked fastest.

Start-up commissioning at a bitumen plant. I was working on boiler equipment. A fitter accidentally closed the wrong valve – and the monitoring of the steam boiler's status stopped working. The boiler started overheating, water quickly evaporated. The main process equipment was also in start-up mode, and liquid raw material was already flowing through the units. When the problem was identified, steam stopped reaching the process, and bitumen began to solidify. Within five minutes, all operational and emergency services were alerted. And a couple of minutes later, the plant's general director called me – I had never met him before. He asked what was happening. I picked up – and within a minute we coordinated actions, saving the equipment and the raw material. Now imagine if I had seen his number and thought, "voice messages are evil," and didn't answer? Or if he had written to me, and I check my email once an hour? The consequences – downtime, rejects, huge losses.

I have dozens of such cases in my practice. And they all share one thing: when speed is critical, voice is the only tool. Metallurgy, chemicals, aviation, oil refining – it's the same everywhere. Voice messages and calls cannot be replaced by any CRM.

Who Translates Live Speech into the System?

Every decent plant has a liaison – a foreman, an engineer, a dispatcher. They translate the shop-floor language into system language, enter data into CRM, fill out requests. But they can't work in a vacuum. If management refuses to pick up the phone and demands only written messages or voice messages with subsequent transcription, the foreman will either stop solving problems (because writing takes too long) or start sugar‑coating things to avoid annoying the bosses. And if they place an "efficiency manager" without experience in that role – they'll turn live speech into bureaucratese and lose half the meaning. The plant will get not a solution, but nice reports.

People are different. There are brilliant technicians who can diagnose a fault by sound in a second, but writing a clear email is torture for them. They'll call and say, "Nikolay, this thing is rattling wrong" – and I already understand. Forcing them to write or record voice messages means losing a specialist.

About Partners and Trust – Again

By the way, in that post, the girl argued that with partners you should also communicate only in writing, otherwise agreements aren't recorded. I gave an example from Israel, where multi-million-dollar deals are often closed without contracts – based on trust and verbal agreements. I was told: "That's not a sign of high performance, it's a broken system." For me, a broken system is when you can't trust your partner and have to document every little step. If there's no trust – what kind of partner is that? Written documentation is for long-term, planned relationships, but in emergencies and in live communication, trust decides everything. Voice messages are a middle ground: they're faster than writing, but they don't offer the immediacy of a call.

Where Do Such Experts Come From?

What worries me is the sheer number of "optimisation experts" who have never worked in operations. In 2019, everyone suddenly became a virologist; in 2022, a political scientist; now, everyone's a management guru. They come to a plant, sit in a warm office, and implement trendy methods without understanding what's happening on the shop floor. I've seen how after such "digital transformation" the plant ground to a halt because no one answered emergency calls, and requests were hanging as third priority.

Meanwhile, the "efficiency manager" had everything green on his dashboard. He didn't even know where Shop No. 3 was. And other managers, equally distant from reality but afraid of falling behind the trends, pick up these theories. The result – real processes suffer, and sometimes people.

What I've Learned in 20 Years

Don't blindly copy others' models. First, thoroughly understand how your plant works – where it hurts and where it breathes easily. Then build your communication system so that it has room for writing, voice, and, when needed, voice messages (as a quick way to pass information if a call isn't possible). They're not enemies – they complement each other. And if someone tells you that a call or a voice message is a marker of chaos, ask them how they'd act if a fire broke out in the shop. Would they call or write a request? The answer is obvious.