Tuesday, September 2, 2008

This is just something - a pause

This probably has absolutely nothing to do with Al-Anon, but it may help you and help others.

I receive a lot of phone calls. Phone calls from some very bright and worldly people. But when they leave me a voice message, you would not believe the how fast they talk and how when they leave their phone number, the numbers run together and I have to jump back to the place in the voices message where they start to leave the return number. What a pain!

I wonder how many clients receive voice messages from sales people who leave their numbers and - maybe the client DOES want to return the call - but cannot understand the phone number left on their answering machine.

This last one - left by super smart guy - a Senior Vice President with a super good accent (Canadian accents are so clean and clear), but even he, as he was leaving his return number left no pauses between the area code and the next three numbers and therefore the numbers all ran together.

Instead of 800 pause 543 pause 1022, it became 8053122, or something like that.

Even after rewinding it three times - I think I got it. Someone once told me, I could slow down the voice message. Hmmmm, should I have to? Sure - if it's my boss, I guess I would have to. But shouldn't we know better?

Take your time when you leave a message. Put the pauses in there. And, repeat it again.

Maybe this is my sign of codependency kicking in or people pleasing, but it sure would be nice to have a clear number to call someone back on.

2 comments:

Syd said...

Hey Joe,I agree. It appears that the numbers are given so fast. Sometimes I just give up and don't return the call.

Anonymous said...

I have the same pet peeve. Even if the caller speaks clearly, sometimes the quality of audio is not the best (sometimes sounding like a bad PA system on the metro). Somewhere along the way I observed/heard a habit that I then appropriated as my own. When leaving a voice mail, I say my name and number, then the body of the message, then at the end repeat my name and number again (in a manner which feels too slow, but probably isn't for the person writing it down).

I agree with Syd, though. Sometimes you just have to let it be the other person's problem, shrug and say, eh, I guess they'll have to call back.