In a world where Gen Z would rather lose a finger than make a phone call, how do businesses keep real human connections alive? In this episode of Marginally Better, Joe Taylor, Jr. explores the rising “telephobia” reshaping customer service, why voice calls still convert better than any other channel, and how leading companies are bridging the gap between digital fatigue and high-touch connection. Plus: how micro-experiences are redefining personalization, why AI-powered interfaces may be too “natural” for some users, and what it really means to communicate in the age of intent-based design. If your customers won’t call—and your employees won’t pick up—this is the episode you need to hear.
Episode Links:
- How Micro-Experiences Are Building Loyalty in an Over-Saturated Market
- Customer Experience Strategy Framework
- Leverage Customer-Centric Innovation to Improve Loyalty
- Gen Z Developing Fear of Phone Calls
- Call Declined: Why Gen Z Won’t Pick Up the Phone
- Gen Z Phone Anxiety
- Importance of Customer Experience
- Socially Awkward Generation Won’t Pick Up the Phone
- UX That Feels You: How to Design for Emotional Intelligence
- Will 2025 Be the Year for Immersive CX
- First New UI Paradigm in 60 Years
- Generative AI on Its Own Will Not Improve Customer Experience
- Welcome to the Era of “MEH”
Additional Research Sources:
- Customer Experience Examples: How Leading Brands Win
- The Secret Behind Nike’s Martech Stack
- U.S. Chamber of Commerce – How the Micro-Experience Trend Fuels Customer Engagement
- Harvard Business Review – Using Technology to Create a Better Customer Experience
- Phone Call Anxiety: Simple Ways to Overcome Telephobia
- Gen Z is Afraid of Talking on the Phone
- Millennials vs. Gen Z: How Their Customer Service Expectations Compare
- AI Chatbots in Healthcare
- Conversational AI Insights from Gartner and Forrester
- 3 Wishes for AI UX
- AI-Powered Success Stories
Transcript:
Announcer: From the global headquarters of Johns and Taylor in beautiful New Jersey, it’s Marginally Better. Here’s your host, Joe Taylor, Jr.
Joe Taylor, Jr.: On the show this week, what happens when your best customers would literally rather lose a finger than call you? A new survey found that some Gen Z workers rank awkward phone calls among the top three things they’d want to avoid in life – right up there with public speaking and death.
But here’s the twist: Phone calls still convert 10 to 15 times more revenue than web leads. So what’s a business to do when a growing slice of your market physically can’t bring themselves to dial your number?
We’ll explore how smart companies are turning digital exhaustion into loyalty gold through tiny moments of connection, why a 25-year-old travel agency is nearly giving up on training young employees to answer phones, and how AI is creating the biggest shift in human-computer interaction since we stopped using punch cards.
That’s all coming up after the break on Marginally Better.
Welcome to Marginally Better, a show about business, innovation, and the American economy. I’m Joe Taylor Jr.
Let me ask you something. How many apps sent you a notification today? How many emails? How many texts? If you’re like most people, you stopped counting somewhere around breakfast.
We’re drowning in digital noise. But some companies have figured out how to cut through it all with what experts are calling “micro-experiences” – tiny, perfectly-timed moments of value that don’t exhaust your customers.
Take Starbucks. They’ve got 30 million loyalty members, and they use an AI system called Deep Brew to analyze everything – your purchase history, your location patterns, even the weather where you are right now.
So when a cold front hits Seattle, their system automatically sends personalized messages to customers who usually order hot drinks. Not “Hey, it’s cold, buy coffee!” but “Sarah, your usual venti caramel macchiato is ready for mobile order at 3rd and Pine.”
The results? According to research from Renascence, this micro-personalization approach increased their marketing ROI by 30%. And get this – loyalty members visit three times more often and spend three times more than non-members.
But here’s what makes it a micro-experience rather than just marketing: It’s useful at the exact moment you need it. It doesn’t demand attention; it offers value.
Nike faced a different challenge. They had over 100 million users on their Nike Run Club app, but how do you create personal connections at that scale?
Their solution was brilliant. Instead of blasting everyone with the same “Just Do It” message, they created what they call an “ecosystem of micro-experiences.”
According to reporting from Martech360, their Nike Fit tool uses AR to measure your feet through your phone camera – solving the number one problem with buying shoes online. Their workout plans adapt to your actual running data. Weather bad? Here’s an indoor alternative. Milestone coming up? They celebrate with you.
The result? Nike’s digital sales jumped 36%, and they now have over 150 million members across their platforms. But more importantly, as documented by Renascence, these aren’t just customers – they’re people who identify as “Nike runners” or “Nike athletes.”
Now, you might be thinking, “That’s great for Starbucks and Nike, but what about smaller companies?”
Here’s the thing – the principles work at any scale. McKinsey research shows that personalization can reduce customer acquisition costs by up to 50% and lift revenues by 5 to 15%. Netflix saves about a billion dollars annually just through personalized recommendations that keep people from canceling.
The key, according to a Forrester framework detailed by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, is what they call the IDEA approach: Identify the moments that matter in your customer journey, Design experiences that match what customers actually want in those moments, Execute with contextual relevance, and Analyze continuously.
But here’s where companies mess up. In trying to create these micro-experiences, they often fall into what researchers call “engineered insincerity.”
You know what I’m talking about. The birthday email from a company you bought from once three years ago. The “personalized” recommendation that suggests you buy the exact thing you just bought. The chatbot that uses your name seventeen times in one conversation.
Harvard Business Review documented this problem in their research on customer experience technology. The issue isn’t the technology – it’s using technology to fake human connection rather than enhance it.
So what actually works? The most successful companies follow four rules:
First, make it authentic to your brand. Starbucks sends coffee recommendations because they’re a coffee company. Don’t try to be everything.
Second, make it valuable, not just personal. Using someone’s name isn’t personalization. Solving their problem is.
Third, time it right. The best micro-experience happens exactly when the customer needs it, not when it’s convenient for you.
And fourth, keep it micro. If it takes more than a few seconds to understand or act on, it’s not a micro-experience – it’s just more digital noise.
Because here’s the truth: In a world where everyone’s competing for attention, the winners aren’t the loudest. They’re the ones who show up at exactly the right moment with exactly what you need. No more, no less.
Coming up… how do you run your business when nobody wants to talk on the telephone anymore? That’s after the break on Marginally Better.
Casey Halloran had tried everything. Incentives. Training programs. He even hired a business psychologist. But after 25 years running Namu Travel, he was facing a problem he’d never anticipated: His younger employees simply couldn’t – or wouldn’t – pick up the phone.
“We’re nearly to the point of throwing up our hands,” Halloran told reporters. His younger agents were registering less than 50% of calls compared to older employees. In a business built on personal service and complex international travel planning, this wasn’t just inconvenient. It was existential.
Halloran’s not alone. Across the country, businesses are grappling with a stunning generational shift. According to research documented by CBS News, the BBC, and others, 90% of Gen Z experience anxiety about phone calls. Let me say that again: Nine out of ten young workers feel genuine, physical anxiety when the phone rings.
Dr. Elena Touroni, a consultant psychologist quoted in BBC Science Focus Magazine, explains it this way: “We’re seeing a generation that’s grown up curating every interaction. On text, you can draft, edit, perfect. On a call? You’re exposed. You’re vulnerable. You might say the wrong thing.”
The psychology runs deep. Without visual cues – which make up 55% of communication – phone calls feel like navigating blind. Add in the fear of awkward silences, the inability to gauge reactions, and a generation raised on asynchronous communication, and you get what researchers are calling “telephobia.”
But here’s the problem for businesses: Phone calls still drive massive revenue. While I couldn’t verify the often-cited claim that 70% of business revenue comes from voice interactions, the numbers I could confirm are still staggering.
According to data from industry sources, phone calls convert 10 to 15 times more revenue than web leads. They have 84% higher conversion rates than other forms of engagement. For high-consideration purchases – cars, insurance, complex B2B services – the phone still reigns supreme.
This creates what one business owner called “the paradox of the century.” Your most valuable customer interactions happen on the channel your newest employees refuse to use.
The situation has gotten so dire that universities are stepping in. Fortune reported on colleges launching actual courses to help students overcome telephobia. Imagine that – young adults paying tuition to learn what previous generations considered as basic as tying their shoes.
But before we judge, consider this: During the pandemic, something interesting happened. According to Zendesk research, 42% of Gen Z actually called customer service MORE during COVID – the highest increase of any generation. When things got serious, when they really needed help, even the phone-averse picked up the phone.
Back at Namu Travel, Halloran’s struggle represents thousands of similar businesses. Here’s a company that’s thrived for a quarter-century on personal service, on agents who could talk clients through complex itineraries, who could hear the excitement in a honeymoon couple’s voice or the anxiety in a first-time international traveler’s questions.
“We’ve tried everything,” Halloran explained. Scripts don’t work – they make the anxiety worse. Role-playing helps a little, but only temporarily. Even hiring a business psychologist yielded limited results.
The younger agents are brilliant at email, fantastic at chat, masters of social media. Put them on the phone? They freeze. Some literally feel sick. It’s not laziness or incompetence – it’s a fundamental mismatch between how they’ve learned to communicate and what the business requires.
So what’s working? The smartest companies aren’t choosing between phone and digital – they’re creating bridges between them.
Capital One rebuilt their entire infrastructure to be cloud-first, enabling seamless transitions between chat and voice. Start in the app, and if things get complex, a callback is scheduled. The customer maintains control, the anxiety decreases, but the high-value voice interaction still happens when needed.
Maple, which provides voice AI for restaurants, found a sweet spot. Their system captures 30% of after-hours calls – the ones that would normally go to voicemail – and handles them conversationally. Average ticket values increased by 18% because the AI could naturally upsell in ways that anxious human employees couldn’t.
The key insight? Don’t force phone-averse employees to pretend they’re comfortable. Instead, use technology to create comfort zones that gradually expand.
But there’s a deeper issue here, one that goes beyond generational preferences. We’re losing the skills of real-time human connection. The ability to read tone, to respond with empathy in the moment, to build rapport without a script – these aren’t just job skills. They’re human skills.
Mary Carmichael, who runs a consulting firm specializing in generational workplace issues, puts it bluntly: “We’re not just talking about customer service. We’re talking about a generation that might lose the ability to have difficult conversations in real-time. What happens when they need to negotiate, to persuade, to comfort someone in crisis?”
The solution isn’t to abandon voice communication or force a generation to communicate in ways that cause genuine distress. It’s to recognize that we’re in a transition period that requires creativity and compassion from both sides.
For businesses, this means Implementing callback systems that let customers initiate digitally but complete vocally, training that acknowledges anxiety rather than dismissing it, hybrid approaches that play to each generation’s strengths, recognition that voice skills can be learned, but it takes time and patience.
For younger workers, it means understanding that voice communication isn’t going away. In fact, as AI handles more routine interactions, the ability to connect human-to-human becomes more valuable, not less.
Casey Halloran at Namu Travel hasn’t given up. He’s implementing a buddy system where experienced agents sit with newer ones during calls. He’s investing in better headsets that reduce audio anxiety. He’s creating “voice victories” celebrations for successful calls.
“We’re not going to let a generation of brilliant young people limit their careers because they’re afraid of the phone,” he says. “But we’re also not going to pretend it’s 1995. We need to meet them where they are and help them get where they need to be.”
Because in the end, whether it’s a complex travel itinerary or a customer service crisis, sometimes you need more than an emoji. Sometimes you need a voice that says, “I hear you. I understand. Let me help.”
And that’s worth preserving, no matter how many text messages we send.
Coming up, it’s the first truly new innovation in computer interaction in 60 years. Are you ready to let go of click-and-command? That’s after the break on Marginally Better.
Imagine you’re sitting at a computer in 1960. To make it do anything, you need to punch holes in cards in exactly the right pattern, stack them in exactly the right order, and hand them to an operator who feeds them into a machine the size of a room. One wrong hole, one card out of place, and nothing works.
Now fast forward to today. You pick up your phone and say, “Hey, remind me to call Mom when I get home.” And it just… does it.
According to Jakob Nielsen – the same researcher who’s been studying how humans use computers since those punch card days – we’re witnessing something extraordinary. For the first time in 60 years, we’re changing the fundamental way humans tell computers what to do.
Nielsen, writing for the Nielsen Norman Group, breaks it down into three eras. First came batch processing from 1945 to the mid-60s. You had to think through everything in advance, punch those cards, and hope for the best. No mistakes, no do-overs.
Then came what he calls “command-based interaction.” That’s everything from typing DOS commands to clicking icons to swiping on your phone. For 60 years, whether you were using a green-screen terminal or the latest iPhone, you were still telling the computer HOW to do something, step by step.
Now? We’re entering the age of “intent-based outcome specification.” That’s a fancy way of saying you tell the computer WHAT you want, and it figures out HOW.
This isn’t theoretical. Healthcare chatbots alone saved $3.6 billion globally by 2022, according to research tracked by Coherent Solutions. OSF Healthcare’s Clare AI now handles one in 10 patient interactions. Not by following scripts, but by understanding what patients actually need.
The conversational AI market? It’s exploding from $66 billion in 2023 to a projected $377 billion by 2032. As reported by Openstream, banking leaders see AI as fundamental to future success – 77% of them, to be exact.
But here’s the plot twist that Nielsen uncovered: About half of people in wealthy countries don’t have the skills to use these new AI interfaces effectively.
Think about that. We’ve created the most “natural” computer interface ever – just talk to it like a human! – and half of us can’t figure out how to do it.
It’s what researchers call the “articulation barrier.” Turns out, knowing what you want and explaining it clearly to an AI are very different skills. It’s like the difference between being hungry and being able to write a restaurant review.
Microsoft’s research, documenting over 1,000 customer transformation stories, shows what this looks like in practice. A financial services company implements an AI assistant. Sounds simple, right?
But watch what happens: Older employees, comfortable with phone calls and clear procedures, adapt quickly. They’re used to articulating needs verbally. Younger employees, masters of clicking through interfaces, suddenly struggle. They know what they want the system to do, but they can’t figure out how to ask for it.
One IT manager quoted in the research said, “We thought AI would be easier for our younger staff. Turns out, knowing how to prompt an AI is more like knowing how to delegate to a human assistant. And that’s a skill we stopped teaching 20 years ago.”
The promise is beautiful: Instead of clicking through 17 screens to book a flight, you just say, “Book me the usual trip to Chicago next Tuesday, but make it an afternoon flight this time.” The AI knows your preferences, your usual airline, your seat choice, everything.
But as Nielsen points out on his Substack, we’re not there yet. Current AI interfaces are like “trying to drive a car by describing where you want to go to a taxi driver who’s blindfolded and speaks a different language.”
The solution? Hybrid interfaces. Keep the precise control of clicking and typing for when you need it. Add voice and natural language for when that’s easier. Give visual feedback so people know the AI understood correctly.
Here’s what fascinates me about this shift. For 60 years, we’ve been teaching humans to think like computers. Learn the commands. Follow the syntax. Click in the right order.
Now, for the first time, we’re trying to teach computers to think like humans. And it turns out that’s not just a technical challenge – it’s a human challenge too.
The businesses that win in this new paradigm won’t be the ones with the most advanced AI. They’ll be the ones who figure out how to help both their employees and customers cross that articulation barrier.
Because in the end, the most natural interface in the world is useless if people don’t know how to use it naturally. And that’s a design challenge that goes way beyond technology – it’s about understanding how humans really think, communicate, and express their needs.
The age of asking for what we want instead of clicking through how to get it? It’s here. We just need to figure out how to ask.
Joe Taylor Jr.: That’s our show for today. Whether you’re crafting micro-experiences, bridging the phone gap, or teaching computers to understand humans, remember: The best technology disappears. It doesn’t make you think about how to use it – it just helps you do what you need to do.
Thanks for listening to Marginally Better. If you like what you heard, please help us out. Leave a quick review on Apple podcasts. It will help us spread the word about the show to people like you who care deeply about great customer experiences.
If you want to get behind-the-scenes notes from me and the rest of the team, go to marginallybettershow.com or follow the link in our show notes.
Marginally Better is a Calufrax radio production. Our producer is Nicole Hubbard with research by Connie Evans. I’m Joe Taylor, Jr.
Joe Taylor Jr.
After a decade in broadcast media, Joe developed early online platforms for NPR, PBS, and AOL. Today, he helps our clients tell compelling brand stories through audio, visuals, and software.