2010: The Year of Saying, "I Got It"

Posted: February 10, 2010

2010: The Year of Saying, "I Got It"

I'm not talking about "getting it" as in "I get that you're just not that into me" or "I get that I am perfect and whole and beautiful" or even "Stay away from me - I got it."

I mean, simply acknowledging that you got someone's email, letter, message, enquiry, job application or order for fluffy slippers.

2010: The Year of Saying, "I Got It"

I'm not talking about "getting it" as in "I get that you're just not that into me" or "I get that I am perfect and whole and beautiful" or even "Stay away from me - I got it."

I mean, simply acknowledging that you got someone's email, letter, message, enquiry, job application or order for fluffy slippers.

I'm noticing a disturbing trend in business interactions - or rather, non-interactions: the non-response being offered up as a response.

Whether it's a job application, a follow-up, an eBay or Craigslist purchase - people are sincerely and faithfully not responding.

The Cingular "dropped call" campaign and various spoofs dramatized the perils of non-response due to technology failure, with people jumping to wrong conclusions, off buildings and down people's throats.

The cause? A modern mixture of overload, apathy and/or arrogance - and the fallout can be as damaging as the Cingular ads illustrate.

First, your non-response leaves ample room for people to switch from thinking warmly to bleakly about your product, your company. And you personally, if they manage to pin your name or face to an email address. They will then tell 10,000 others on the internet. Stay non-responsive, and it leads to plotting and scheming to hire a unabomber to erase you and your lousy widget from the planet. You know how road rage can lead to someone leaping from a car and pulling a gun? I assert a non-response causes the mind to circle those same neural pathways ...

I recently applied for a gig which, I hallucinated, suited me down to the ground. Let me share with you the job description:

About the Client Relationship Manager:

Our clients aren't interested in data; they aren't interested in crunching numbers - they're interested in getting answers to critical business questions. Our relationship managers help our clients get the answers they need - fast. They excel at listening to our clients, understanding their questions, and using the xxxxx intelligence platform to answer those questions.

About You:

* You are friendly, motivated, and smart
* You find business endlessly fascinating
* You like talking to people
* You are comfortable crunching numbers and drawing conclusions based on the crunched numbers
* You like technology but are happy to let really smart MIT computer scientists build it
* You have a bachelor's degree
* You might have a few years of relationship management experience
* You might know something about global trade
* You're cheesy enough to care about making people happy and making the world a better place

It's a friendly and refreshing job description, isn't it? I prepared a response, sent it off, then waited. I did not receive an "I got it". A follow-up email was also met with silence. The ad prohibited phone calls. How about a carrier pigeon?

They want someone who is "cheesy enough to care about making people happy and making the world a better place". Wouldn't this company "get" that acknowledging a person - even by auto-responder - would make her happy that her email landed, and thus make the world a better place? A Customer Evangelist - a 24/7 Client Relationship Manager - "gets" this.

But wait - maybe this company's junk mailbox is overflowing. Maybe I got the wrong address. Maybe their server is down. Maybe the owner is dead. Maybe his parrot's dead and the owner's on bereavment leave. Maybe I'm the Client Relationship Guru of their dreams, maybe not. They might know, but do I know that they know?

I recently had a customer speak to me for the first time in 3 years. For some inexplicable reason, I never responded to a string of his emails. He admits to spending 3 years stewing over it and sticking pins in a small, Oriental-looking rag doll. I can only say his emails must have gone into a black hole because I try, how I try, to answer every email, even if just to auto-respond, "I got it."

I recently bought a laptop protector from a company called iPearl Inc for $29.95. It arrived damaged. The company wrote and told me to send it back for a refund. I sent it, I posted pictures of it and have a record of sending it. No response. Several emails and several months later, no sign of my PayPal refund, and they're still blithely selling the things (I finally received customer satisfaction as a result of this plea, thank you iPearl Inc).

So, I start thinking murderously. Trawling the internet for ways to trace the owner, so I can hire a pyromanic with a flame thrower to torch their warehouse and blow up pallet after pallet of Made-in-China iPearl laptop covers sky high. I feel baselessly embarrassed for the entire Chinese race - of which I'm a card carrying member. Even if you simply wrote "Sorry the cover arrived damaged, but we have your money now, so bye bye boidie", it would be more definitive than No Response.

Once, when the first contractor to sew my Traffic Cone Bag didn't respond for weeks, I eventually cross-haired her house on Google Earth and sent someone from my 25,000 strong network of customers to her door in Las Vegas to politely save her the trouble of the trip to the post office. A simple "Got it, can't do it, luv" would have saved me from stalking her and the $500 I eventually lost on trusting her.

I bought a pair of shoes online recently. I did not receive an automatic acknowledgement from the seller for 4 days. My mind had enough time to wonder if I'd fallen victim to a shoe scam, causing me to surf about and pin a name to the email address and discover it's a person enrolled in a computer course in Cal Tech and then make plans to call the institution to track the shoe sheister down.

And then there was the fancy hamper company that didn't send a timely acknowledgement when I had an order delivered to friend in hospital Downunder. I later felt compelled to ask my friend to reassure me of what was actually in the hamper, fearing they'd swapped out the fancy soaps for a bar of neon-green Dial Deodorant and the fancy flatbreads for Saltines and Marcona almonds for Planter's Dry Roasted Peanuts and ... you get the idea.

I don't mean to imply that I spend all my time chasing around wayward internet transactions. I'm pointing out what happens when you, as a business, as a person, fail to simply say, "I got it." It erodes the cornerstone of an enduring business relationship: trust. "Without trust, we cannot start," an artist in Indonesia once told me, as we negotiated a deposit on a painting with the balance due on delivery.

It's happening outside business too - can you really afford to blow off friends and family?

"My family send cards with money inside to nieces and nephews, and it seems that no acknowledgement is now the norm," laments a friend. "So you don't know if they actually got the money. Or got abducted." He believes technology has so reduced the attention span of youth that they forget even to text "thx, got."

I suspect there are thousands of brain cells occupied at this moment with the thought "did they get it?", braincells which could be put to work on world peace or inventing the next iPhone app. I assert that unanswered email and voice messages amass into an ever increasing tumor of unfinished connections and unclosed conversations that hangs over the city like a monstrous toxic cloud obscuring the warmth of the sun with a fog of Fear, Uncertainty and Customer Relationship Death.

So you're overwhelmed, you're too busy. And you'd rather not answer, than answer inadequately.

It's easy, polite, and decent to put in place thoughtful auto-responders to do your responding for you.

1. Job applications submitted by email - set up an auto responder to state that the application landed. This indicates to the sender they had your email address right. "We received your application with thanks. You'll be hearing from us if we have more questions for you." It's that simple.

2. If the candidate is clearly not suitable for the job, super decent companies will auto-respond something like: "Thank you for your recent application. It doesn't fit our requirements at this time."

3. If you trawl through hundreds of emails each day as many of us do, shoot back "I got it, stand by." That's pretty easy to cut and paste. Or, "I got it. I'm flat out like a lizard drinking, so if I haven't gotten back to you in a week, or if it utterly can't wait, poke me again. Please."

People will understand - we're all busy.

4. For nieces and nephews who are sent money - just call and say thank you, or it might be the last windfall you get until you graduate.

5. Check your junk email box. Often.

It's not rocket science - think of the origins of "I read you", "Roger", "over and out" and other forms of voice procedure - and why there were invented. From the Wiki: Voice procedure communications are intended to maximize clarity of spoken communication and reduce misunderstanding. The need for clarity didn't end when we stopped talking and started emailing.

You spend millions building up trust in your brand. You can destroy it in minutes for the sake of three words. "I got it" is the "I love you" and "Just Do It" for the new Decade.

The origin of the non-response conundrum?

She: "Do you think she's more attractive them me?"

He: (no response)

BY FC Expert Blogger Lynette Chiang
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