The other day, I called a someone who I hadn't spoken with in a few years. He was a business connection, but we hadn't done any business together.
He answered his cell phone with "Hello, Ann?" The inflection was such that there was a question in his voice that I was actually calling him, and he sounded surprised. Understandable, since I hadn't called him in quite a while, actually I had probably never initiated a call to him. We laughed about it, and I said "Yes, it's really me" and we continued our discussion.
The point of this is that it was evident that he had saved my number in his cell phone, and that I was important enough to him that he didn't delete it. Now I fully understand that for real estate investors and mortgage brokers, it is important to have a private lending or hard money source, so it is access to funding that is important, not necessarily me personally. 
However, in spite of knowing this, it made me feel that I was important to him. Contrast this with another person I do business with regularly, and I always call his cell, because that's his business phone. He seems never to know that it is me calling, and always answers simply "Hello?"
Now, if I haven't saved someone's number, does that mean they are NOT important? In my case, no. I try to save everyone's information, because my Droid syncs to my Contacts. So if you call and I don't recognize the number, it may simply mean that I don't have your contact info, or I forgot to save it last time you called. My bad.
So what do you think? If you save your customer's phone number in your cell phone, and acknowledge them when you answer, will they feel that they are important to you? Do you like it when people answer the phone and acknowledge that they know who is calling right away?
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