Frustration with new-age communication being ignored *whinge*

[John Davidson]

The way my clients tell me to look at it is, “if you don’t hear from me about it, it’s a good thing”. We’re all at the mercy of the people that give us money.

[Mike Cohen]

David, I experience the “sent an e-mail, no response for days at a time” syndrome frequently.

However, as with a co-worker or friend who seems to be in a bad mood or is also non-communicative, I always have to remind myself of the following possibilities:

1. Your client has other stuff going on at work, like planning for a big sales meeting.

2. Your client may have stuff going on outside work, like a sick child, spouse or other emergency. The last thing they are going to do is e-mail you.

3. The client is, in reality, extremely busy. You know the guy who, while talking face to face with you, is checking his Blackberry every 15 seconds because he’s drowning in e-mail, and much of it is time sensitive. Your email, alas, is less time sensitive.

4. The client got the message, but accidentally deleted it, and moved on to something else, forgetting about your project for a few days until you e-mail him again.

5. The client got your message, viewed the video or whatever, but then got distracted by his kid spilling paint on the cocker spaniel, and had to put the iPhone down for the evening.

6. The client got the e-mail, viewed the video or whatever, made some notes, but wanted to show it to some colleagues before getting back to you. One would think the client could shoot you and e-mail saying as much, but the guy has a lot of stuff going on so it is not as urgent to him as it is to you.

7. The client asked for the video or whatever by a certain day/time, such as before a trip or vacation. One would think this would mean that he would look at the video and then get back to you before the big trip. Not likely. You held up your end of the bargain, but that was not contingent upon getting feedback in teh same manner.

Alas, clients are busy people. That’s why they have hired you to execute their dreams better and easier that they could accomplish. But they have a lot on their plates. Is it frustrating? It can be.

By the same token, build some breathing room into your projects and workflow. If I don’t hear from a client for a few days, I cannot assume that something is wrong. Something is actually good, because I can use that time to work on some other tasks.

If feeling anxious, you could:

1. Send a follow up email saying, simply, “Dave, please confirm receipt of my last e-mail re: 4th video edit.”

2. E-mail or call the admin and ask “Can you check if Dave received my e-mail about the video? It’s no rush but I want to make sure my message went through.”

E-mail is a useful tool, but it is a tool.

If there is a string of back and forth questions, sometimes it is easier to pick up the phone. Set a timer if you are worried about it getting out of hand. Ask the client “do you have a few minutes?” If not, either setup a time, or send an e-mail that they are on the lookout for.

Feel better?

Mike Cohen

[David Rodney]

Yeah, agreed. Just a pain when you are expecting answers (or needing them, more importantly) and the message(s) get ignored. I always thought email/sms would be less intrusive in their day than having to take phonecalls all the time.

I understand everyone is busy – so am I – but ignoring specific questions (on a regular basis, I am talking about) is anti-productive and painful.

Looks like I should learn to love the phone more, I guess.

[Grinner Hester]

People in business only respond when they need something from you or want a healthy relationship with you to get something from you later. It’s friends that respond to be polite. When I get igbired by a boss or client, I take it as the good news that it is.

[Chris Blair]

I think the good old telephone is still a fine tool to get answers and is often WAY faster and WAY more clear than exhanging emails and certainly infinitely more accurate than exchanging texts. For me, texting is just plain cumbersome.

I use email a lot, but I frankly get annoyed by people who rely on it for everything, especially “yes or no” type questions. I believe email should be for longer, more detailed issues that need to be in writing for reference and referral.

I’m probably in the minority on this issue as I don’t think most people read past the first sentence of most emails. Especially since I can ask three brief, numbered questions in an email that’s less than 50 words long, and about half the people that respond will answer 1 of the questions (if I’m lucky), 40% won’t answer any of them, and 10% answer all.

Not to mention the confusion that results from people’s varying writing and communication skills. We have one client that sends emails and the entire office has to convene to try to decipher them. It’s actually gotten to be something of a fun activity…and while we love this client, they can’t write a complete, coherent sentence much less an entire email.

We once had an employee that absolutely refused to pick up the phone to confirm things with clients. She would often say, “I emailed them this morning and haven’t heard back.” To which I would say, “WELL PICK UP THE PHONE AND CALL THEM!”

9 times out of 10 she’d call, get the client on the first try, and get an answer to the question in less than a minute. I agree with the poster that detailed the reasons for people not responding to email. It’s usually unintentional and few people consciously avoid responding or are being rude about it. They’re just overwhelmed, or unorganized or preoccupied.

Funny story, but I have a former client that once emailed me 28 times in one day about a project. That’s an email every 17 minutes during an 8 hour day!

He had other email explosions totally 26, 24 and 22, all in one day. Now THAT’S rude and unnecessary.

Chris Blair
Magnetic Image, Inc.
Evansville, IN
http://www.videomi.com

[Ron Lindeboom]

[David See] “In this day and age of instant, simple communication such as email or SMS messaging between mobile phones (cellphones), I get so frustrated when particular clients or contacts (and it seems to be the same ones all the time) refuse to respond to a question or a message containing information regarding a project we are working on for them. Or even just messages between business associates.”

Let me play Devil’s Advocate on this one: Whereas many probably feel the way you do, I don’t. There is nothing “instant” about email or SMS to me. I am VERY busy and I do my best to answer people. But if I answered every email that I get as I get them, I’d be doing little else.

Just because someone writes or texts me, does not mean that I am automatically obligated to drop everything and answer them.

Right now, today, I have 817 unopened emails. NONE are older than a few days. I hope to get to them this weekend when things slow down. Will I answer them all? Hardly. In fact, I will only answer a few.

Some are from clients and they will get an answer. Some are from people who I know and work with here in the COW and they will get an answer. But those who wrote me asking questions that they don’t want to ask on the forums because it will make them look stupid (in their opinion), they can expect neither an answer or the courtesy of me telling them why I am ignoring them.

The ones who do not bother with a salutation nor an ending comment of thanks or to even bother using their name, they will get nothing from me. Those that write me by name and at least thank me, will get an explanation as to why I point them to the forums and will not answer privately.

Like Chris Blair stated, I too have had people email me every few minutes demanding an answer. These ones will learn that after they do that, I will NOT answer and will likely use caller ID to send them to answering machine limbo.

I cannot think of anyone who pays me enough to make my life stressful and a nightmare. I also cannot think of anyone who is entitled to write or call me demanding an answer and not using such magic words as please and thank you. If they think they are so damned important that they needn’t bother with such cursory and unnecessary niceties as simple courtesy, they will find out quicklyt that I do not place their bloated sense of self-importance high on my list of priorities.

BUT…

When people write me and are courteous and congenial, they are the ones I bother with — as I have time.

An email in my inbox or to my cellphone does not automatically obligate me to drop everything to answer you.

You may work differently. I am not about to. Not with the huge amount of business that we do, and the exorbitant amount of mail we get.

My friends and clients know that the best way to contact me is to pick up the phone. That is way faster and gets more done than emails back and forth, again and again, getting issues finaled and resolved. No thanks, I have better things to do.

Ron Lindeboom

[Bob Zelin]

Let’s relate this to Creative Cow. A guy (many guys at many forums)
asks a question like this “oh my God, nothing is working, I have to get this job out in 1 hour, can someone PLEASE help me” – and a barrage of responses are sent to him, everyone asking “ok, let me know if that worked” – or – “if it doesn’t work, tell me exactly what you see”.

And you hear nothing back.

bob Zelin

[Bill Davis]

Sounds like you’re anxious about this stuff. That’s reasonable and fair.

But fundamentally, it’s YOUR issue.

Be proactive to do something in order to take care of your anxiety.

Try posting your low rez draft “approval” videos to a server – with email links behind a COUNTER that tells you if the recipient has looked at the file and/or passed the link to others for comment?

If the counter doesn’t rachet in a couple of days, resend them a message about the link. Simple email, no big deal.

If they don’t respond within 48 hours again, total the bill to that point and send it out as a “progress payment” PDF and put the project on hold and turn your attention to something else.

If you don’t hear from them for a while after that, the project goes “INACTIVE” and let them know you won’t bring it back again until they pay the current bill in full.

That might be one way to put the proper responsibility on the CLIENT for the necessary communication in order to keep projects alive – and give you verifiable progress touch points to quell the anxiety.

FWIW.

[David Rodney]

Yeah, I guess I am somewhat anxious, but the anxiety comes from the fact that we have at our disposal on an everyday basis, forms of INSTANT communication that will not divert us for very long. ESPECIALLY if a project is time-sensitive.

Technology allows us to be efficient, if we allow it to, that is.

Plus, a non-response could perhaps reflect that your effort/opinion/request is just not worth responding to.

I am very busy too, but out of courtesy, respect and so the sender knows I have received the message, I always have/make time to type “ok, thanks for that”.

It takes ten seconds and they know I have the info.

[Steve Kownacki]

The guy who wrote the 4-hour Work Week only answers email once a week.

I can’t quite do that and run my shop, but like Ron, I only respond in an appropriate time based on the client or vendor and the project at hand. Most times responses can wait. Sometimes I need to do reviews with others; you never want to look too available; good time management doesn’t allow you to do email unless necessary; etc.

Like all the discussions about contracts, you establish the means and rules for communication up front. Some rush jobs require the client to sit in or be available for immediate feedback – let them know up front. Goes back to plain old good communication in the beginning… and that’s face to face in most cases for new clients, via phone and follow-up email with existing.

All this lightning-fast communication I think gets people in trouble. Not enough time is spent thinking before hitting send. That’s why I don’t have a PDA, I don’t want to be that connected nor available. I’ll never set meetings when at a meeting. Give’s me time to think about everything on the way home that may impact what needs to get done in the meantime.

Steve