When looking to trim billions of dollars from the budget, companies often look at eliminating wasteful spending, reducing workforce and automating some services. While those are all efforts undertaken by JPMorgan Chase, the financial institution also found a surprising amount of savings by cutting the cord on employees’ voicemail.
The Wall Street Journal reports that if you try calling a Chase consumer banking staffer when they’re away from their desk, you probably won’t get an option to leave a message.
That’s because the lender has deactivated the voicemail for nearly 65% of its 135,908 workers, resulting in an annual savings of $3.2 million.
Calls to employees without voicemail will now be answered with a generic message asking the caller to try back at another time.
The decision to cut the messaging service came as the company attempts to trim nearly $2 billion from its annual expense. And with voicemail costing $10 a month per line, it was a perfect target.
“We realized that hardly anyone uses voicemail anymore because we’re all carrying something in our pockets that’s going to get texts or e-mail or a phone call,” Gordon Smith, head of JPMorgan’s consumer and community bank, said. “So we started to cut those off.”
Not all of the company’s employees will be without voicemail, though. A spokesperson for the company says that some employees, such as bank managers, continue to need the service.
JPMorgan isn’t the first company to ditch traditional voicemail systems. Last year, Coca-Cola eliminated voicemail at its headquarters, suggesting callers use email or cellphones to reach employees.
J.P. Morgan Hangs Up on Voicemail [The Wall Street Journal]
by Ashlee Kieler via Consumerist
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