Millennium Marketing Research®
Tom Schori DBA Millennium Marketing Research®, 808 Ironwood, Normal IL 61761, 309-532-8466

The great communication breakdown in business.

By Thomas R. Schori, Ph.D., and Michael L. Garee, Principals,  Millennium Marketing Research, 808 E. Ironwood, Normal, IL 61761-5239. Tel. 309-532-8466 -

We don’t mean to start sounding like curmudgeons, but are we the only ones who are witnessing an alarming erosion of plain, old-fashioned professional manners and simple common courtesy where business communication is concerned? Things such as people virtually never answering their own telephones (they let "phone mail" do that), or even paying the common courtesy of returning calls, sometimes numerous calls from the same person?

Now, don’t misunderstand us here. We’re not suggesting that businesspeople have any obligation whatsoever to respond to every idle, unsolicited telephone contact made with them. What we are suggesting is that businesspeople do have, or at least should feel that they have, a professional obligation to respond in a timely fashion to calls from known colleagues, associates and/or current suppliers.

As we’ve indicated numerous times in these columns, we’ve spent considerable time during our careers on "both sides" of the desk, i.e., both as clients and as suppliers. If it were merely a situation of where we have encountered this sometimes total lack of response on, say, the supplier side of the desk, perhaps we could sort of understand it. (We didn’t say we’d appreciate it any more, but we would at least better understand it because we know that many clients simply avoid talking to suppliers until they, the clients, actually want or need something from them.)

Unfortunately, however, that hasn’t been, nor is it now, the case. We have witnessed this lack of responsiveness phenomenon, this great communications breakdown, for the last few years on both sides of the desk, and it seems to be worsening with each passing year!

In at least two columns during the last year, we have attributed¾and roundly criticized¾the role the ubiquitous "phone mail" plays in this great communication breakdown. And, at the risk of redundancy, let us reiterate that we believe phone mail to be one of the most awful "technological advances" ever to be visited upon business. Rather than facilitate or improve communication, more often than not, phone mail all but brings it to a grinding, frustrating halt. But, of course, phone mail is only a technology. It’s people, not the technology used by them, who are the principal source of the problem.

To put this communication breakdown into perspective, as well as to personalize it, think back just during the past week or so about how many times you have personally witnessed this phenomenon. Was there a business colleague whom you had to repeatedly contact by telephone before finally "connecting" with him or her, provided that you even made such a connection? Did you engage in the unenviable chore of attempting to resolve an issue or problem with some company over the telephone, only to become totally frustrated after being "bounced around" in the company’s phone mail system menu? Or, did you attempt to contact a company by telephone and were never able to talk to a real live person? How many people promised to "get back to you," but never did, which required you to recontact them?

If you have not personally experienced any of these types of problems recently, you’ve either been extremely fortunate, or you simply have not been swimming in the syrupy mainstream of contemporary commerce.

Undoubtedly, at least some of this communication breakdown and erosion of professional courtesy and good manners is the unfortunate byproduct of a booming economy. Today, some companies have so much business that they simply just don’t have to try so hard to satisfy customers and prospective customers, so they don’t. But, in our way of thinking, that’s still more of an excuse than a bona fide reason.

While we certainly don’t want to set ourselves up as the "Miss Manners" of business communication etiquette, we would like to make a few modest suggestions on how one might go about reinstituting courtesy and good manners in business communication.

  • If you must use phone mail, make sure you check it frequently for messages, and then respond to those messages in a timely fashion, usually within one work day.
  • While at your work station or in your office, take your phone off phone mail and answer your own phone, or, if you are a "mucky-muck," have your office assistant answer the phone.
  • Always make sure that it’s possible (and easy) for a caller to talk to a real live person, if necessary.
  • If you are going to be out of your office, make sure that there is a way for callers to learn that information, i.e., leave an appropriate message on your phone mail, etc.

Remember when you first started using the telephone as a means of communication, probably as a child talking to a grandparent or other adult relative? Didn’t your mommy and daddy instill in you the necessity of answering the phone within a certain number of rings and in a mannerly fashion? And, to be sure and return phone calls on a timely basis? Well, just because you are now an adult and use the phone principally to conduct business doesn’t mean that good phone manners are no longer important or relevant! Indeed, if you are guilty of committing some of the business communication faux pas mentioned in this column, maybe it’s time your mommy and daddy had another little talk with you about phone manners!