Ally’s meeting with her inside-sales team starts in just seven minutes, and the updated agenda tells her, this one’s definitely going to run long. For Ally, that’s no big deal. She just needs to push back her flight to Denver later that evening before the meeting gets underway.
As a road warrior, she’s all too familiar with the “fun” of business travel. But unfortunately, when you have partial hearing loss, even the routine sometimes gets a little tricky.
After she jumps on her phone and dials the airline reservation center, the call starts off simply enough. There’s room on the 8:30 p.m. flight for a frequent flyer like Ally. Same destination, later departure, no problem. Then? Well, that’s when the blizzard of details come in rapid-fire succession: departure time, arrival time, fare difference, change fees, connecting gate info. And then the agent wraps it all up with the dreaded confirmation number (“just in case”). The reference number is so long, Ally briefly wonders whether she’s rebooking a flight or launching a satellite.
We All Have That Jolt Moment
This isn’t just a hearing-loss problem. At one time or another, we’ve all had that “jolt moment” when a (supposedly) simple phone call turns into a stream of names, numbers, dates, addresses, and instructions that no one was prepared to write down, much less remember.
Naturally, as she stands near the conference room before her meeting starts, her phone in one hand, coffee in the other, she realizes her notebook is three offices away. That might have fazed “old Ally,” but not anymore.
Some phone calls used to get tricky for Ally. When the connection wasn’t great, someone was talking too quickly, or the agent spoke in that familiar call-center monotone, it was easy to lose some of the details, leading to the endless “Can you say that again?” loop.
That’s why, years ago, she turned to Rogervoice, the simple app that helps her better manage calls like this one. As the airline agent starts rattling off numbers and instructions, Rogervoice simultaneously presents captions on Ally’s screen. She can see the new departure time instead of wondering whether she heard 6:15 or 6:50. The fare difference is there, and so is the confirmation number.
Now, Ally doesn’t need to hold every detail in her head – because she knows Rogervoice captures and stores a complete call transcript on her phone. Instead, she can confidently – and fully – participate in the conversation. She can easily ask whether the layover is long enough. She can confirm she still has an aisle seat in the exit row. She can respond to the agent instead of mentally deciphering six digits while another six are already on the way. In just five minutes, the call is finished – with two minutes to enjoy her coffee until the meeting.
Anywhere, Anytime, Any Call
A mere three hours later, her sales meeting marathon wraps up, and she’s made it to the airport (and through her expedited security line). Ally, the self-admitted coffee addict, takes her next call while awaiting her final caffeine fix of the day at a noisy coffee shop. This allegedly “quick” call comes from a longtime high-priority customer making changes to their latest order.
The good news: Demand for the customer’s new product is stronger than expected. The “challenging” news: They need faster deliveries from Ally, and they’re leaning on her to make it happen.
“Oh, we also have a new shipping address, and a new contact at the warehouse,” her customer mentions far too casually.
“No problem.”
“We also need to increase the quantity, which I think gets us a volume discount. Oh, and I have a new vendor ID that we need you to add to all future invoices,” he says before rattling off a string of letters and digits that seem endless.
“Gotcha,” says Ally as she pays the barista, grabs the latte, and keeps walking toward Gate B-17.
A Smoother Call
As she sits back in her exit-row aisle seat she booked only hours earlier, Ally doesn’t need to struggle to reconstruct that customer conversation from memory. And she doesn’t have to decode a MadLibs-style note that says, “Tues? Kevin? Dock 4?? $184?” And that becomes essential just 40 minutes later, when her coworker Slacks her to ask for the new warehouse contact. She simply checks the transcript, finds the name, and sends it over.
One major advantage of having the details captured as the conversation happens: a smoother phone call. Call captioning means Ally can focus on the call itself instead of turning every conversation into a frantic transcription exercise – complete with “Can you say that again?” With a simple app on her phone, Ally’s on top of things when the details start getting specific.
Sometimes peace of mind just comes down to knowing the call details will be there when you need them.
