Busy people who never reply to messages – and are proud of how busy they are. What can be done?

What can you do about people who you just can’t get hold of, and who never reply to your messages.

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Start with the soft approach:

  1. Ask them: is it better to use email or Slack or WhatsApp or phone calls or phone or to leave them voicemails, to come and see them in person?
  2. Experiment: Try all different methods in case there is one that works.
  3. Experiment, and ask them, what’s the best day of the week and when’s the best time of day to contact them?
  4. Always keep your messages short, whether they are emails or texts or voicemail messages, ….never be high maintenance!
  5. Ask others if they have the same problem, to reassure yourself it’s not you, and also maybe someone has cracked the code!
  6. When asking them help, or decisions, try to give them a choice of A or B, or yes or no, and always suggest solutions rather than just presenting them with problems and asking for an answer.
  7. Mention briefly what’s in it for them, in the message, “if you call me back before Friday, I can get you XY&Z”
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If none of that works, we have to either give up (it’s an option!) or get a bit tougher!

(Not all of these will be appropriate to use on a customer, although if they’re not ordering stuff then you’ve got nothing to lose if they are ignoring you.  But for suppliers they are fine, and colleagues also fine.  For SENIOR colleagues, and your boss, you have to be a lot more careful though!)

  1. People who are proud of “how busy they are” are very annoying – and deluded if they think they are impressing everyone else
  2. It’s rude not to reply to emails and messages, that’s for sure
  3. If you could deal with anyone else, e.g. if they were a supplier, then I would.
  4. You could try calling them out on it, saying it’s great that they are so busy but it’s a problem for you, all you need is 10 minutes, and please don’t ignore this email like you’ve ignored all the others.  Maybe say it’s getting to a point where it’s affecting the customers, or costing the company money?
  5. Remember to do my ‘step one’ at the front, “I understand but….” and steps three and four afterwards: what you do actually want rather than just moaning, and will they give you some sort of commitment?
  6. You could try going to their boss, saying can THEY give you what you need because this person just isn’t being effective in the comms department – you can be polite and say they are great at their job, they work really hard, no doubt about that, but they are so busy that they don’t even reply to your emails, which is giving you a problem  that’s affecting the customers / costing the company money / affecting other staff.
  7. You could physically go round to where they work and actually doorstep them!  Saying you’re at your wits end, you NEED 5 minutes and they have ignored all your emails and messages.  Some people might respect that, it might finally get the message through.
  8. You could let things fall apart and make sure that this person gets the blame – point customers directly to them, say to your boss that half the numbers are blank in your report because you’re still waiting for them from this person, let things run out of stock,  etc.  Basically play the politics.  I hate to recommend that, but then I think this person kind of deserves it.
  9. You could make “assumptive actions” and tell them that you’re going to do it if you don’t hear from him, or that you didn’t hear from him by the deadline so you had to make a decision, so you’ve gone ahead and done it, you hope that’s OK.
  10. Can you deal with the people BELOW this person?  They probably never see him or her either, so maybe you can get together and just get on with things, telling them afterwards that you’ve saved them time, a decision had to made, and you are sure they’ll agree it was the right thing to do.
  11. Find their weakness, withhold something that they need until you hear from them. It does need to be logically connected, and not just blackmail!!  For example you could say “I can’t send you the next batch until I get the Quality figures from you’, or “I can’t guarantee to support your IT system unless I get this information / decision from you”.

Maybe you can use one of the above, ….or several?

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These are just my thoughts and opinions, I don’t know the person or the full details of the situation so I may be wrong.  If they help you to think about it then that’s great, but don’t hold me liable if you lose a contract or get fired!  Personally, I would run that risk because life isn’t worth living when you have this sort of thing, and it’s everyone’s duty to fight for what’s right, for basic manners, for what’s good for the organisation, and if you get punished for doing that then you’d be better working somewhere else.  However, in the end that choice is up to you!

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