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Return Phone Calls
I've decided to start a new category in this blog - Rants. I'm curious as to what kind of response I will get to these types of posts. If nothing else, I'd love to look back on these a few years from now, and see how I feel about those same things then.
Today I'm focusing on the people who don't return phone calls in a prompt manner. I think that if you have made the effort to contact me, then it is very disrespectful of me to not return your call. My personal benchmark is to return my calls within 24 hrs. as long as I'm not traveling out of the country - in which case I leave a message to such effect on my voice mail. The only exception to this, is when a stranger calls me unsolicited wanting to sell me something that I have not requested.
Why do I do this? Because in my opinion, returning calls in a promptly manner is not only a sign of good manners but it is also GOOD business. My experience is that people really appreciate my efforts to get back to them in a promptly manner. It helps build trust and credibility. And that in turn helps build relationships. And relationships are the cornerstone of my business.
On the other hand, I feel that the opposite is also true. Lack of prompt responsiveness is not only bad manners but disrespectful. It is BAD business, erodes trust and undermines credibility. It also wastes a tremendous amount of time.
You may want to keep this in mind the next time someone leaves you a message. The benefit/damage you may do to your business might be greater than you think. I'd love to hear what you have to say on this matter.
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1 comments:
Lilly,
In the book Crucial Conversations, the authors have a section called "Mastering my Sories." In there they talk about how we pass the events that take place in outside of us through our mental "filters." In other words, we tell a story (assign meaning) to these events. The meaning we assing to events triggers our feelings. And our feelings trigger our actions. This is the Thoughts=>Feelings=>Action=>Results model we use in our courses.
We often tell ourselves stories where we are the victims and others are "villains." When we do this, we often end up feeling and reacting like your sister did.
If we don't like the way someone makes us feel, then we need to work on telling a different story. One of the ways we can change our stories is to ask ourselves questions. A very useful question to do this is the following: "Why would a good and decent human being say (or do) that?" This question, forces us to look for alternatives that will take us down a different path than being a victim.
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