Whose voice was that?
Picture this scene.
You’re busy concentrating on something in the office or perhaps having a conversation with someone, but only half concentrating as you’re dialling a phone number to make a call. The phone rings a couple of times, it’s answered and you finish the conversation you were having with the other person, or perhaps finish your train of thinking and then realise that there is a beep and you were listening (well, only half listening) to a voicemail message. You leave your message and hang up.
A couple of days pass and you realise that person hasn’t returned your call. How rude. So you shoot them an email (or DM them via Twitter) and ask them if they got your message?
Their response is they didn’t. The person you were calling checks their phone logs or voicemail and there is no message from you. What did actually happen?
Chances are you rang a wrong or old number but because you weren’t listening to what took place at the other end after it stopped ringing you can’t even be sure who was on the voicemail message or if it was a blanket recorded message used by Telco services.
Ever happened to you? mmm, thought so. I believe this happens to too many people and it’s a sign of busy-ness and trying to get several things done at once. Trouble is we end up causing delays for ourselves simply because we weren’t paying attention at the time we made the original call.
So, what are you going to do on your next phone call? Listen did you say? Thought so.
You said, “Chances are you rang a wrong or old number…”
If you rang an OLD number, then my question would be when was the LAST time you tried contacting this person. I have been guilty of contacting people—only to discover the number they gave me changed or no longer exists.
The lesson here is to stay in touch (especially if it is or was a client) just to touch base. If the number is disconnected, drop them a postcard and let them know you were trying to reach them.
I’m not sure if I’ve ever done that (I sure hope not!) but I have received messages for other people, e.g., “Hi Greg, it’s your Dad, call me when you get a chance.” Once or twice, when it sounded important and the caller left their number, I’ve called to let them know what happened, but otherwise, I’ve wondered what happened when the person didn’t call back: arguments? breakups? lost business?
This is definitely good advice!
Like Janet, I haven’t had this personally happen to me either, but have been the recipient of a more than a few calls. A number I used to have was one digit different from a doctor’s office in town. I got messages for his office all the time, usually people calling in prescriptions. At first I would call the office and pass on the message. But when it occurred to me that people just weren’t paying attention to the message on my machine (which was clearly not a doctor’s office) I stopped.