I got a message today from a vendor I am working with. He said that he had something he needed to talk with me about - urgently. I called him back to find out what the problem was and he said that he was just calling because he hadn’t heard back from the email he sent last week. I immediately apologized and asked him which email and what it was he needed answered, because truthfully I couldn’t remember there being any questions from the week prior. He then told me that he had sent a status update but hadn’t heard back.

Ah! There we have the problem. I did indeed receive the status update and had in fact read it. But, I never let him know that. Why? Well yes, I should have sent back some message that just said, “Got it. Thanks,” but it was a busy week. More importantly there was no question in the report that needed answering. When I talked to one of the consultants on the phone later I relayed this and added, “there was no question.” “Yes,” the consultant sighed, “I told him that.”

So here is your question - are you calling you customers to action? Or are you just assuming that they will know what to do with the information you give them? When you send out emails or other marketing, do you know that those peices are received and what happens next?

Anything you send out, even if it is just an update or information, should have a clear and present call to action. It could be as simple as clicking a link to your website or replying to “please let me know you got this.” It could be as involved as “call me know so I can discuss how this impacts you.” Whatever it is, you need to get that action going. You need to make sure that person is actively engaged in the dialog you are having. There is never a reason to just send out things that don’t have an action associated. If you catch yourself saying, “this doesn’t need a response,” then you need to ask yourself why you are sending it at all. There is enough stuff floating around out there clogging up people’s attention space without adding more that really has no use.

So, with customers and co-workers, ask for a response. This will help you to not only find out if they received and understood your message, but if they are even involved in you dialog at all.

And here is your call to action from this post. Please leave me a comment if you find these hints useful. And if you would like to stay up to date with this site, please subscribe to our news feed by clicking on the link in the upper right hand side of this page. Thanks!