I posted a blog entitled “Technology Burnout. If People Don’t Read or Listen to Your Messages, What’s the Point?”. You can still find it if you like at www.firstapproach.biz under the “blog” tab.

The subject was the declining viability of using electronic media as a communication tool in the world of business to business sales. Now, Lord knows there is no shortage of acronyms in business, but it was only a question of time until the latest iteration of business acronyms came up with “Ear to Ear”. This is a really good one.

For those that know me, you may have suffered one of my lengthy diatribes attacking the digital onslaught on customer service, and my prediction that we would see a resurgence or shift in tide to pre-digital business practices, especially in the services sector at some point or another.

Do you own a credit card? Have you attempted contact with customer service lately? You may have noticed a difference in the number of prompts to get a “person”.

Needed customer support for your mobile device lately? Chances are your carrier has moved some, if not all of their CSR’s (customer service reps) back on-shore, and more are coming.

For now, the tide that I believe will lead to more person to person interaction is just starting.

Unfortunately though, we are still largely just getting lip service.

Some companies have mandated marketing departments to begin selling the promise of better service. The savviest brands recognized that the consumer is becoming increasingly more jaded by “digi-service” or in fact, the lack thereof because of digi-service. Yes, I made digi-service up. Use it at will.

Actually, I doubt many organizations care all that much about good service but rather, recognize that poor service is a pain point for their customers and thusly, see the promise of more human contact as a marketing edge. No worries, eventually they will have to see the promise through, and the result will be more traditional business to consumer interaction. More person to person. More ear to ear.

So, what’s the point?

Recently, a good client shared with me a new policy just introduced at this global corporation he is an executive with. It is called “Ear to Ear”

Its origin lay in management’s increasing frustration that initiatives were not moving forward because people just weren’t in communication. The culprit – no surprise here – was the increasing phenomenon of people ignoring emails. What kind of emails you ask? Emails to colleagues, emails to those they reported to, and amazingly enough, emails to those who reported to them. Yes even their direct reports were becoming increasingly un-responsive to emails. Were they reading and ignoring them? Probably not – and my experience bears this out – they just weren’t reading them, period.

Was it because they were lazy? Was it because they just didn’t care or were incompetent? The answer is no. It’s because technology has finally reached the point where we can no longer engage with every request made for our time or attention.

We are overwhelmed to such an extent that responding in a timely fashion, if at all, is no longer possible. Even amazingly (maybe that should be frighteningly) to communication from our own colleagues.

As you read this, your head is probably bobbing up and down like one of those toy puppies you used to see on the back shelves of automobiles. Why, because you are one of these people yourself, and it isn’t getting any better.

So what’s one to do?

As demonstrated by the good example of the above referenced company, you can re-introduce the concept of actually talking to people. That’s right, Ear to Ear, actually requires one to speak to the person whose participation is required. It can be on the phone, it can be in person, but the central theme – the critical theme – is that it has to be a live communication.

This means no more emails, no more cc’ing the world in the hope that someone will act, and it means no more voice mails if you need someone to respond.

In reading through the missive published by this company introducing their new policy, they point out that;

“If you have a request, you must first speak to the person and explain why you need the information, by when and in what format. Yes the request takes longer, but the results of true conversations are amazing and less people are disrupted.”

I don’ agree with this specific point. Does it “take longer”? I think not, but that depends on how you define longer.

If the metric is that it took more effort to actually connect with the intended person vs. firing off an email then yes, it takes longer. However, if the real measurement is how long it took to generate the required action, then I don’t believe anyone would disagree that action and engagement materialize much more quickly once you’ve actually talked to someone.

Mark my words. The day is coming where the people who truly excel and succeed in business will be those who drive action, engagement, and follow-through because they make a point to speak to people, instead of settling for “I never heard back”.

Want to be one of these people?

Pick up the phone.