Commit to being contactable

Lisa Selli

Technology has stepped up phenomenally to facilitate this requirement and has succeeded beyond all expectation by providing us with numerous ways to make contact and be contacted. We are hard pressed to find a person who does not have multiple ways to be reached. Skype, email, phones with endless apps for chatting, not to mention the internet and the associated social media, which plug right into your phone and are a complete invasion of your privacy.

Yet, we communicate less and less with each other and people are less and less accessible. Banks, for example, have these wonderful applications where you can do all your self-service functions like buying shares, trading, transferring money, paying bills, purchasing airtime and much, much more, all from the comfort of wherever you choose to be. There are convenient IVR systems that allow you to acquire assistance without going in to a branch.

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All of these wonderful facilities should, by rights, free up more time for us, surely? Yet everyone is always rushed off their feet and never available, creating more frustration and less productivity. Even with all this fancy technology that costs millions to develop, and which is designed to give us more time and make us more accessible, people's availability is fast becoming a rare commodity. Despite all these wonderful ways to help ourselves the queues are no shorter yet there are fewer humans to deal with our queries.

Non-contactable client

A case in point: I have a client who I know is really busy, so I sent him an email with what I needed. After having no response to that mail I tried calling. I reached his voicemail, which asked me not to leave a message but to send a text message and promised a speedy reply. So I sent a text message and heard nothing for the entire day. I then turned to Skype and sent a message there which went unanswered for an additional day after which he responded and told me he would call me. The call was not returned for another day. I then sent another mail, which was finally answered by one of his staff, who he had instructed to give me some information that he assumed I was after, but was actually not what I needed. I lost a week because he could not commit to be contactable.

How many of us are guilty of doing this to other people? How many times do you see an email yet ignore it because it may be uncomfortable or irritating or something that you just cannot be bothered with. How many of us work ourselves into a corner and, despite having so much technology, are just too busy to pick up the phone, answer a call, a Skype or an email?

Those of us who try to reach our clients are all sick to death of reaching voicemail, out-of-office replies and facing empty mailboxes - these terrible things that put a halt to our productivity. However we cannot change other people and complaining about it doesn't work. The only thing we can do to make a difference, at least to ourselves, is change our own habits and behaviours and hope this will make an impact on others. Why not use technology to your advantage, as it was intended?

Here are some suggestions

1. Commit to answering your phone: How does it feel when the people you phone don't answer? Yes we all get phone calls we would prefer to avoid; however the bottom line is that if you don't deal with it now you will have to deal with it later. Deal with it now! Take that call. Pull the tooth, rip off the bandage. Then it's done. Say no to that pushy salesman. Tell your mum you are not coming around on Sunday. Tell the boss that your project will be late. Say sorry to your partner for missing your anniversary. Deal with it and move on. You may find that dealing with things upfront frees up the rest of your day to focus on other important things.

2. To voicemail or not to voicemail: Yes, you cannot answer every single call, especially and understandably during toilet time. However, many a time I have missed vital information for not checking my voicemail and, at times, the cellphone service provider does not always notify you that you have a voicemail waiting. But if you just don't check it, what's the point? Like the client that I spoke of earlier did, tell the caller to contact you on text message or email or another alternative - but then commit to answering them. If you don't like this either just disable your voicemail function or go out of business and become an Island Boy, because that is the only way you will get away from being contacted.

3. Leave no mail unanswered: As much as you may want to hide under a rock when you see certain mails you must reply to mails as soon as you are able to. Naturally, you have to prioritise a bit, but deal with the important things first. As an adult, and a specialist in your field, you don't need to be educated on how this is done. Sometimes a reply just to say that you have seen the mail and will respond later goes a long way to making you look a lot more professional. Just flag it for your attention later. As mentioned with phone calls, be blunt - if you cannot use the information sent to you, reply to the person and tell him why and move on. Ignore the junk emails that are time wasters. Let this message be clear: dignify each mail with a kind response. I emphasise the word "kind". It boils down to the "do unto others" concept.