I spent about ten years with field service as part of my job. What that taught me is every form of communication has it's uses. For full effect you often need

I spent about ten years with field service as part of my job. What that taught me is every form of communication has it's uses. For full effect you often need multiple types. Talk on the phone. Send a follow up email. Then talk on the phone again. Update the original email into a formal doc. Two engineers with a whiteboard can solve some problems in a few minutes that would take days of back and forth over text. Formal text though is usually very good. Especially if the author can produce high quality output quickly. This is my particular failing.