Communication Frequency

I've been working with a couple of clients recently who have what I consider a somewhat archaic view of communication. Rule number one: if your project deadline is a couple weeks from now, you do not need to call me, text me, or email me twice a day to see if I'm finished yet. I've spoken to two clients about this because I am curious about the mindset.

The response is, invariably, I just wanted to check in and see how it was going and I thought you might be finished early. Yep, right - I finished, and I'm not going to send it to you for approval. Sarcasm intended. If I've finished your project, that's one less thing on my perpetual list of things to do. One client says they just call to check. What to do with these clients? Suck it up and #gettowork? I think I balance my day pretty well, even if I'm not working on their project every second of it. Let them go to voice mail? All that gets you is the responsibility to call them back, which sometimes leads to that age old stalling maneuver, phone tag. Email and text have made the potential to robo dial a high probability.

I'm still puzzled, though. It's almost like they don't think I'm going to let them know. I have a client waiting on a contract. We asked for a contingency clause, and this client checks in twice a day. Am I going to check in twice a day with the guy I'm expecting the contract from? No. There's a really fine line between being good at following up, and harassing someone. And as I wrote yesterday, recognizing the personality type you are dealing with goes a long way towards maintaining a friendly and professional relationship. For the record, I have asked this particular client before why they think an hour or a day at the longest is the standard response time for everything. Response: It's on my list of things to check on.

If you don't believe me, check out job postings. Invariably, they have a statement at the bottom that is the equivalent of 'don't call us, we'll call you'. It doesn't have anything to do with whether they want to hire you or not, and it has everything to do with the fact that HR simply does not have enough hours in the day to return the phone calls of desperate or misguided job hunters. They have other projects they work on, meetings to attend, and hopefully, some continuing education courses.

Bottom line: calling repeatedly to ask the same question over and over again because you have the time to do it, can be very frustrating to the person on the receiving end of all the phone calls if they don't have another second to fit in their day if they hope to get everything done. Know the type of person you are communicating with, and if you are compelled to call more than once a day, make sure you're leaving them enough time to work on your project.