An alarming amount of people will call a phone number and then not leave a message. I don't see this too often with my clients as they know their message is extremely important to me and that I always respond quickly. But what about the rest of the world?
I see this rude and unsavory trend with people looking for information, but even worse and more confusing is that professionals like real estate agents, title companies, lenders, attorneys that really need something but can't take 30 seconds to leave their number and ask for a call back. They just assume that I am hanging over my missed call list on my phone. I personally get a huge amount of calls that are robocalls that I have set to ignore automatically, and a hang up call gets treated almost the same. Anyone that is a real live person that has the courtesy to leave a voice mail, I get a notification, a text, and an email so I never miss an important call. I am happy to return a call as soon as I get back in service or out of a meeting but I can't do that if I have no idea that they called.
So my latest example from today.
I live and work in Idaho. I have a client buying a home in Oregon. A title company in Oregon complained to the client that they tried hard to get ahold of me and a local title company. I knew for a fact that nobody left me a voice mail or text and the local title company also stated that noone had tried to contact them. So I searched through my missed calls, sure enough a week earlier nestled in the middle of 5 robo calls I found an Oregon number that had no caller ID. I searched it out on the internet and found it was the title company in question. Does anyone understand why a professional in a title company would not leave a message so that they could get the information that they desperately needed to service their client? It sure doesn't make sense to me.
While I am sure some people will not agree with my methods, there are times I do not answer my phone. If I am with clients I try to give them 100% of my attention. If I am at dinner or in a meeting I wont be rude to the people I am with by constantly play with my phone. If there is a number I don't recognize for fear of picking up a robo call. If im driving without a blue tooth or in a bad cell area. I will however return those calls just as quickly as I am able to.
I have another fun one that I see once in awhile, the rapid recaller.
The last time I went to the movies I turned my phone off which is the courteous thing to do. When I got out of the show I had 31 missed calls from the same number within a 21 minute period. I promptly called the number to find a mailbox was not set up. I texted the number to find out it was a landline. 3 days later the person picked up said they read through the whole description and it answered their question. When I asked about the rapid recall they said I always call repeatedly so someone will pick up instead of wasting time leaving a message. This person wasted 21 minutes plus 3 days instead of 30 seconds to leave a message.
I used to think that maybe someone was in a hurry and thought they could get the answers from someone else more quickly. Thats rarely the case as usually if they do get ahold of someone they then have to call me for the answers or to set an appointment so no time gets saved. It was at least a plausible scenario. One study suggest that people that dont leave messages have low self-esteem and don’t think their voice is recording-worthy. Really?? You mean to tell me that we have created a society of people that spend a fortune on cell phones would be lost without them and are scared to leave a voice mail or text because they might be rejected? I found another study blaming it on generation Z, but I am seeing this in all the age groups.
Does anyone know why this is happening? What about you, do you leave messages for people you want to talk to?
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