Published Work

This is Barry Moltz Returning Your Phone Call

One thing I pride myself on is that I return every phone call I get.

It's not that I'm polite. I think it's a result of years of not having my calls returned that has humbled me. It makes me realize the effect an unreturned call has on someone I know. Why doesn't everyone in business return your phone calls?

I don't mean the cold call you get from someone you don't know. Those are optional in my mind. You don't owe those people anything and you may be too busy for that.

I mean returning calls from people you have talked to many times before on the phone. I mean calls from people you have met with or maybe even done work for. I mean people who know you.

It never ceases to amaze me when someone I have a business relationship with stops returning my phone calls. It simply baffles me. I know after a few weeks of unreturned phone calls that the answer is "no" to whatever it is I want to talk about or the person no longer values our relationship.

I yearn for them to call me on my voice mail in the middle of the night when my cell phone is off and yell: "Barry, you screwed it up. Don't ever call me again you moron." That message I get, understand and respect.

Why don't people just call or e-mail and bluntly tell you that? Why don't people have this common courtesy? With all the electronic (and increasingly impersonal) ways to communicate, why has this task not become easier for people? Are people just plain lazy?

"People are just way too busy and overbooked these days to allow for the very basics of human courtesy," said Diane Kastiel of Small Planet Consulting. "In so many areas, manners take a back seat to expediency."

"A reason people don't respond to e-mail or calls from people they have met before may be because they think they know what the topic will be and they'll get into an extended dialog about something in which they don't wish to engage. This may range from having to say no to a request to not wanting to help with something they know they'll be asked," said Bruce Hanson at PricewaterhouseCoopers.

Both Kastiel and Hanson are on the right track. I think the real reason is because it takes courage to face a "confrontation" and say no.

Most people don't want to deal with it. They would rather avoid the subject and ignore it. A no, though, is as important as a yes because it allows a caller to move on and close the door on you. A quick no is the second best answer to yes. I have a lot of respect for a good no.

Other times, people have no news to the question you are calling about so they think a call back isn't needed at this time. Wrong! Why not call back and say: "Sorry. I have no news. Call me in a week."

Maybe technology has created too many contact points for all of us. Maybe our expectations are too high with all the possible instant communication methods. Amy Heber, CEO of Third Coast Networks, says it's sometimes difficult to return all phone calls.

She added: "If your call isn't on the top of their priority list or if it's not extremely urgent, they will triage it and take care of it later, which may be never or may be in a few weeks. Also, people have different standards of etiquette. It used to be when somebody called you that you called them back. I now find myself barraged with voice mails from three different phones and e-mail demands [keep me busy all day long]."

I remember when I was at IBM in the 1980s and everyone returned my phone call.

Being my first job out of college, I thought this was the way it worked in business. You called someone and they called you back. When I left IBM in 1990 to go to work for Whittman-Hart (then a small company of consultants), I was disappointed to learn that few people returned my calls. I then understood that people weren't returning my call; they were returning a call to IBM. They respected the logo on my card more than me.

Why should you return every phone call or e-mail you get from people with whom you have a relationship? Besides it being a "basic human courtesy," it's also very pragmatic.

All of our careers rise and fall with the economic times. You meet the same people on the way up as you meet on the way down. In other words, today you need something from me and tomorrow I need something from you. If I never returned your phone call when you needed me, what do you think will happen when the roles are reversed?

Communicating in a respectful way will build the relationship capital with other people that you need for your business success.