People write articles, books, blogs, and such because they believe they have something important to say. They hope people will read what they wrote, appreciate it and maybe learn something or improve their lives and maybe even change the world! Well, I have no such naive aspirations. So, instead, I'm going to rant about something that WE should change in our business culture: the culture of non-responsiveness.
Let's suppose I'm walking along the sidewalk heading to my office. Coming toward me I see a person I know. As he approaches, I prepare my smile, do a little wave and say "Hello, Fred!" Fred, walks by as if he never noticed or heard me and I know he did.
This scenario plays out every day. But, it's not in-person as this example but in business when communicating to coworkers, vendors, clients and people with whom we do business. I think to myself, "How rude and unprofessional you are!" I see it no differently than the sidewalk scenario.
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Today, we have created a culture of non-responsiveness. It is now okay to ignore emails, texts, and voice mails from one another. Our excuse? Too busy.
I'm not talking about unsolicited spam emails and phone calls trying to sell oil and gas investments, which I get daily. I'm talking about our friends, coworkers and people with whom we do business. People we know! It only takes 5 seconds to respond to an email and say, "Sorry, I'm busy now can we talk tomorrow at 1pm?" Instead, the recipient feels better to sweep it under the rug as if it never happened. Out of sight out of mind, I suppose.
It's quite infuriating when people just "go dark" and you know they got your email, voice mail and text message. Maybe it's a client that came to you for your
product or service. Maybe it's a vendor that you want to buy products or services. Regardless, you already have a connection with one another and you are owed a timely response. Yes, owed...
How do we cure this rude and unprofessional behavior?
It starts at the top. If your CEO is this type of person, then you can expect everybody under him will do the same. CEOs, your business may be doing well, but if your vendors and customers get fed up with your company's non-responsiveness, over time it will hurt your business and I hope it does. We’ve fired clients and vendors for this reason alone.
Craftlogic has a responsiveness policy. Everybody from Sales to Recruiting to Development to Support knows and understands that they will be responsive to our clients, vendors and our candidates. For example, we get hundreds and hundreds of resumes a week and we respond to each and every candidate within 3 business days. Every one! We owe them that response and we follow through with it. Companies need to implement a corporate responsiveness policy. This would help cure some of these problems.
Everybody should just have common decency and courtesy to not waste one another’s time. We are all busy people. Stop using such a mundane and trite excuse that you're busy. We all know that. Just respond!
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From LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/article/20141007145524-7506493-the-culture-of-non-responsiveness
Craftlogic Blog: http://www.craftlogic.com/blog