April 24, 2006Who Do You Respond To?
This week I attempted to forward a large book order to Jan, my printer, but I accidentally sent it to a subscriber named Jan instead. Subscriber Jan notified me of the error, and I resent the order to the right person. I appreciated Jan taking the time to inform me of my error.
Would you have taken the time to inform me? How do you decide who to respond to? Do you tell unsuccessful job candidates that you filled the position? If someone left a message on your voicemail for someone you don’t know, would you call back and tell them they got the wrong number? How about a voicemail from a vendor who wants your business? If someone from an association you belong to leaves a voicemail asking for volunteers and you don’t want to volunteer, do you call them back and tell them so? What if you get an inquiry from an online dating service that doesn’t interest you? Do you politely decline? How about someone new in your industry looking for support?
I’m sure, like me, you’ve wasted time trying to track down an answer from someone because they didn’t take the time to respond to you in a timely way. And yet, as busy as we all are, and with as many things as we have to respond to, responding sometimes means the difference between getting lunch or skipping it.
And yet again, that person you are considering not responding to could be the person of the hour and the one you need a response from down the line.
I’m sure you know that my policy is to respond as much as I can, but I will admit to having deleted some vendor inquiries without letting them know I’m not interested. I’d love your thoughts and policies and experiences in this area. And thanks again, Jan, for responding to my misdirected email.
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I do take the time to respond to wrong number voice mails. That helps me as well as the other person, as otherwise, they sometimes continue to call, and sometimes at unpleasant hours. I would only respond to bidding contractors not selected for a job if they specifically requested I do so, or if I thought my reasoning for not selecting them might help them in the future (ie – unprofessional behaviors, etc). I am an individual, not a business, so I don’t think experienced contractors expect a “non select” call. I’d like to think that if I were in a business, I would call all hopeful applicants as well as vendors. The applicants for obvious humanitarian reasons, the vendors to curtail future unwanted contacts or encourage wanted contacts. My own job does require me to network with sites and people across the country to get things done for our customers. I do try very hard to apply the golden rule in those cases. I wouldn’t have made the call if it wasn’t important to me, so it’s probably important to them too.
Comment by Kathleen DuBois — April 27, 2006 @ 7:31 am
Yeah! I have returned voicemail, mis directed calls. And, when it was a part of my responsibility to do the hiring I did let candidates that I invterviewed know when a canidate was selected. I think it is just courteous. I still endeavor to treat others as I would like to be treated.
Comment by Jacqueline Pegorsch — May 1, 2006 @ 8:40 am
We must lead by example. “There is evil in the world when good people do nothing”. It’s not about being polarized or being righteous. It is important to make your voices heard to create a culture tht will help us all. I used to have a “make no trouble” attitude but as I am pushing 46, I realized that as an “elder” of the human tribe, I have an obligation to voice the necessary even if it may be very hard to do so.
Comment by Jerry Wang — May 4, 2006 @ 10:50 am
I have called a person back before that called my home thinking it was his doctors office wanting to re-schedule his appointment. I thought it was important to let this gentleman know he had not reached his doctor office. I found his doctors number in the phone book for him and gave it to him .He was very grateful and found out he had reversed two numbers. We had a plesant conversation.
I get many 1-800 calls on my phone saying unknown caller.If they leave a message and I think it is in need of response then I will call back. If a message was not left it leads me to belive the call was not necessary so I do not return the call.
Comment by Frances King — May 6, 2006 @ 3:39 am