#MiPDV – Are You Responsive?

Are you responsive to your team and your customers/clients??

Sometimes I wonder if sometimes our expectations and those we are trying to work with are out of sync.?

For example, we’ve tried to reach an accountant who was recommended to us to do some work. After multiple calls to their office and two conversations with the person who referred us to them, we gave up. There was no outreach from them, either by phone or email.?

The person who referred us to the accountant felt bad that their recommendation didn’t work out, so they sought out an alternate. They spoke to this second accountant – from a different firm than the first – and were assured that the accountant wanted to talk to me. It was an extra step that we appreciate, but which should have been unnecessary.?

Or the architect that we started to work with … the friend who recommended the architect told us that they were slow but would get back to us. Slow can be OK, because it still reflects progress.?

Then the architect missed three self-imposed target dates to get us draft plans. And since missing the third target date, has not responded to our phone calls or emails.?

Our expectation has consistently been that we would hear back within a reasonable period of time – in most circumstances, even an acknowledgement within 24-48 hours that the message was received is acceptable, even if the answer would come later. At no point was the expectation that we had to have an answer immediately.?

Please understand that I’m not writing this to complain about these people, but rather to illustrate that the cost of non-responsiveness can be lost business. We’ve already moved to another architect and accountant because of the lack of responses from our first choices.

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And my observations are confirmed by others.?

In a 2020 blog post, Lisa Larter details how she once placed an order with a local store, then got no response when they tried to place a larger, second order. The second order when to another business thanks to the lack of response: ?

In a 2015 article in Inc. Magazine , Eric V. Holtzclaw argues that responsiveness is crucial for leaders. He states, “As the leader of an organization, your lack of responsiveness costs you real money. It is your job to move projects and initiatives along. When you delay a response, you leave valuable resources idled without direction on how to move forward.”?

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In fairness, Peter Cook outlines a different experience: he went on a monthlong retreat and checked messages twice per week. He did not set an out-of-office responder on his email and did not change his voicemail greeting.?

What I believe is different in Peter’s situation is that he did respond, just not immediately. And his staff continued to respond to clients as usual.?

It seems that responsiveness is becoming a larger issue. Recently, someone showed me a job posting that included in the job responsibilities that client emails and phone calls had to receive responses in less than 24 hours (that was in addition to the requirement to have a weekly strategic update call with each of the jobholder’s 150 clients!).

If that level of responsiveness has to be placed in the job responsibilities, then I suspect that the company has had issues in the past.

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As leaders, we need to model responsiveness. Stan Sherman has a great perspective – he says that responsiveness:

• Defines your brand;
• Promotes innovation; and,
• Starts at the top.

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Think about your team members – are they being sufficiently responsive to their colleagues and customers??

If not, why not? And how is your business suffering as a result of non-responsiveness??

Maybe it could help to look in the mirror to see if you are modeling the right level of responsiveness for your team members.?

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That’s mi punto de vista #MiPDV.

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