As a small agency and I would like to think a friendly team we all pick up the phone when it rings. It’s more about who gets their first than who is responsible for answering the call. So many people are shocked to find that when they ask to speak to the ‘Director’ the answer is often ‘you are’.
In some instances though, and an alarmingly increasing number at that, I have found that people are nothing short of rude when they think that they are speaking to a receptionist. Just recently I answered the phone to a potential supplier who asked to speak to Emma, my business partner and the other Director at Open Communications.
As I explained that Emma was in a meeting but that I was more than willing to take a message the person became very dismissive and tutted at me. They then took the time to refer to their notes and realised that there was another Director in the business that they could pitch their services to – unlucky for them that other Director was me!
All I could think during this whole conversation was that when I was younger I was told that manners cost nothing but that statement couldn’t be more wrong. You see we were actually looking for the services offered by this business but following the way that they spoke to me, believing that I was someone else, all they managed to do was ensure that we will never, ever work with them and I certainly won’t be recommending them to others – in fact quite the opposite.
What this particularly rude person did teach me however is that manners cost a great deal and although the principle behind the original statement remains the same – that it isn’t difficult to be polite – it pays to remember that it is irrelevant of who you are speaking to or what role they have within a business, they deserve your respect in the same way that you deserve theirs.
In my opinion the best business leaders are those who remember their routes, work from the bottom up and often go back to ‘shop floor’, those who don’t are those who fail first and realise why later.