Do you check texts? (SMS)

I hate to be THAT person @DoYouCheckTexts but there is no option there for me, as I think they are both at fault.

The person who had the appointment (Person A) should be looking out for any changes or cancellations to the appointment. (I even ring and check it's still on sometimes on the same day when I have an appointment.) Switching off SMS is a bit daft to be honest. You are clearly going to miss stuff, and it will possibly be something important. (As this has proven.)

Person B should not have just texted and assumed that Person A got the message. What if she had texted the wrong person? I have had texts before that were meant for someone else, as someone has sent the message to the wrong number. Person B should have asked for a response from Person A to confirm she got the text, and if she didn't get a response, then Person B should have phoned Person A to see if she got the text with the 'appointment time change' message.

If she didn't get an answer (when she rang) she should have left a voicemail message. If there was no response to the text OR voicemail message, (say, within 2 hours,) Person B should have tried again. Obviously if 3 attempts to contact the patient failed, then Person B should do no more. But the vast majority of people will get the message/know the hospital or clinic have been in touch, after a text, and 2 attempts at phone calls. Then the onus is on them (Person A,) to ring them back and re-arrange.

So in the case you are stating, both Person A - AND Person B are at fault.

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This is true. I miss so many calls because I’m in meetings etc.

45, I don't agree with you

Phone calls require both people to be available at the same time. People could be driving, working, talking to someone, washing up, on the toilet... they can be a very inefficient way of sending a message.

Fellow millennial here. I turn notifications for bullshit off but not actual text messages that people may use to contact me.

WhatsApp is open to scamming - my company doesn’t allow it to be used so whilst it may be a business chat, you can mirror numbers and such so it’s not something I would want to be using.

honestly, when I read this I thought “who the fuck blocks text messages?”

I block calls on my phone and probably get about 2-3 texts a day, I haven't used WhatsApp since it was owned by Facebook, so not much to check, I rarely get spam, I am old. My number is obviously not out in the wild

There are some things you need to be notified about though. As I said above, my children’s schools use SMS. Obviously not for extremely urgent things, but for example a couple of weeks ago we got a text to say they had no running water and we needed to pick our children up ASAP. They obviously couldn’t phone all 300 parents. So it would be really irresponsible to switch them off.

Personally I’d be really irritated by a phone call. Would much prefer a text. So I guess they can’t win.

I’m nearly fifty and in my personal life I see it as dated too - everyone in my family and friends would WhatsApp.

However doctors, dentists, vet, garage, plumber, delivery companies etc etc all text.

So I see WhatsApp for personal, texts for appointments and other notifications.

Email I see as a different thing entirely - I have to deliberately open it rather than it pinging up on screen like my texts and WhatsApp’s do. I tend to do that once a day at most so would never expect an urgent change of appointment to go there. Work email is different of course - I’m sat in front of that bastard all day 😂

Just to add most communication from my children’s’ schools comes via text, so I’d never turn them off for that reason. For example info re school closures due to snow.

You keep saying about having to go around checking all portals of communication in the run up to an appointment but you don't.

If you just enable notifcations then you are...ummm.... notified.

No going around looking in all different places needed.

🤨

Well, yes, the PP i was quoting said she wouldn't expect professional organisations to communicate by text, my experience is the opposite, numerous professional organizations communicate with me by text. I haven't asked them to, i assume it's their standard method

I very very rarely get junk texts.

I'm really surprised by these responses. The only texts I get are from my dentist and mother-in-law. I see it as a fairly dated method of communication.

I have so many notification symbols at the top of my screen from the two schools my children attend, Outlook etc that I could easily miss a text. I'd not be very impressed it hasn't been followed up by a phone call and voicemail if I hadn't answered the phone.

I'm in my 30s for context.

In the same age group as you. I’d prefer a phone call, but would be happy with an SMS. I’d be less impressed with a WhatsApp, feels massively unprofessional to me.

How come you get so many junk texts? Are you signing up to mailing lists or something? You can de register, surely better than disabling your texts due to it?

Well yes, a phone call would be best but no-one bloody phones any more.

For such a short-notice change, I'd have texted AND emailed. If no acknowledgement soon, I'd consider phoning or voicemail too, then using social media messaging if no answer. I'd be looking for a response to confirm the new time.

I'm Person B in that I generally do not check my text messages. Service providers contact me by email, friends by messaging apps. The only text messages I receive (and there are quite a lot of them) are spam and scans. I probably get 1 genuine SMS per year, if that.

I don't think Person A is being unreasonable but, particularly as prior communication was by email, then email and text might have been better or, better yet, a phone call.

My gut is that service providers should move away from using SMS as a primary means of contact but that's based on my personal non-use of SMS which could be an outlier.

I have text message notifications off too as I never get real ones from people, I think if they’ve never texted before it would have been better to drop a phone call.