no more home phones

Bob Wiebe

I am noticing a trend towards replacing home phones with cell phones.  Persons, e.g. married couples in the empty nester stage,  are opting to discontinue having a land line in favor of having their own cell phone.  It may seem like a strange questions, but I am wondering whether to record one of the phones as a home phone, as that has always been our highest priority contact data in the address panel.  But it is also good to know when calling somebody whether one is reaching them on a mobile or in their home. This means that one needs to take a bit more care with exports and output lists to make sure the best phone sources are captured.  I have been going back and forth on this.  I am open to other insights. 

JoAnn Strommen

Bob Wiebe:

I am noticing a trend towards replacing home phones with cell phones.  Persons, e.g. married couples in the empty nester stage,  are opting to discontinue having a land line in favor of having their own cell phone.  It may seem like a strange questions, but I am wondering whether to record one of the phones as a home phone, as that has always been our highest priority contact data in the address panel.  But it is also good to know when calling somebody whether one is reaching them on a mobile or in their home. This means that one needs to take a bit more care with exports and output lists to make sure the best phone sources are captured.  I have been going back and forth on this.  I am open to other insights. 

Have seen same trend - married couples, single people, young people/couples and even just those who use their cells and decide to cut the expense of land line.  If we know it's a cell phone we enter it as 'cell phone' on appropriate spouse info.  Home has usually been our phone of preference to use also.  If there's no home phone, we're utilizing cell phone.  On our Y membership forms we have people list their cell # as their home phone which can get messy when it's Joe's phone and we call for Mary. [:$]

Helen Wieger

Bob Wiebe:

I am noticing a trend towards replacing home phones with cell phones.  Persons, e.g. married couples in the empty nester stage,  are opting to discontinue having a land line in favor of having their own cell phone.  It may seem like a strange questions, but I am wondering whether to record one of the phones as a home phone, as that has always been our highest priority contact data in the address panel.  But it is also good to know when calling somebody whether one is reaching them on a mobile or in their home. This means that one needs to take a bit more care with exports and output lists to make sure the best phone sources are captured.  I have been going back and forth on this.  I am open to other insights. 

When we know that the donor has given us a cell phone, we record it as such. Most of our forms are still set up for collecting home phones, so we often end up thinking the cell phone is the home phone. Even if we know it's a cell, we rarely know if it is the husband's or wife's phone. As we gain more information, we adjust our records. The more specific, the better. (especially if we want to avoid calling Bob and work to ask for Amy!) When we pull reports we pull home and cell phones.

Jeanne Hampson

Bob Wiebe:

I am noticing a trend towards replacing home phones with cell phones.  Persons, e.g. married couples in the empty nester stage,  are opting to discontinue having a land line in favor of having their own cell phone.  It may seem like a strange questions, but I am wondering whether to record one of the phones as a home phone, as that has always been our highest priority contact data in the address panel.  But it is also good to know when calling somebody whether one is reaching them on a mobile or in their home. This means that one needs to take a bit more care with exports and output lists to make sure the best phone sources are captured.  I have been going back and forth on this.  I am open to other insights. 

As of 2012, we started using "Preferred Phone" when we don't know whether a phone is a cell or landline phone. If we know that a phone number is definitely the landline, then we will use "Home Phone," and "Mobile Phone" for cell, etc.  We have found that most people (unless they are elderly) prefer to be called on their mobile phone. Many people don't check their landline voicemails/recorders on a regular basis---they are often used to screen out robo-calls, political calls, etc. You know your constituency best, in the long run.