In my current position, walking over to talk to the person directly isn’t always an option. I deal with people across the country, often on technical website issues. As a non-technical person, I have a hard time describing the problem. I can take all the screen shots in the world, but if I can’t explain what the problem is, then what good are the screen shots?
I would much rather call and walk the person through the process step by step over the phone when they can ask questions and I can at least get a sense that they know what I am talking about.
As for why the aversion to the phone in the first place, I understand e-mail is cheaper than a long distance phone call and that e-mail leaves a paper trail, but I think we have become so obsessed with the cost saving and documentation that we forget the person on the other end of the e-mail is just that a colleague and more importantly a person.
A great article on why e-mail is not great for communication by the editor at Pick the Brain can be found here.
The article references an equally great post by Scott Young: Don’t Use Email for Conversations.