Stop asking people if they got your message
I don’t know where I came up with this, but I’m sure it was from someone smarter than me. When successfully connecting with someone on the phone after first leaving a voicemail and/or email, don’t ask the person if they “got your message.” It does you no good and merely wastes an additional minute or two before getting to the real purpose for the call, to solve a problem.
I’ve started implementing this policy and can say it works wonders. I simply say “Hello,” after the person answers and proceed to ask my original question assuming they didn’t get my message. This speeds things up and gets you your information quicker than the usual. Who cares if they got your message, what matters is that you get your answer.
3 Comments
Dang it Mr. Loper .. I was going to be the smart-ass!
But something you have to consider is sometimes people leave long messages explaining the situation and knowing if the other person has listened to your message saves you the time of reexplaining the situation. Perhaps we shouldn’t be leaving long voice mails, but I think that might be a valid reason.
So…did you get that thing I sent you?