Update and Cyberspace Manners

It has been a while since I updated my new blog venture, so thought it was time that I put finger to keyboard.

The mortgage business has not been going too badly and I have signed up one more customer since I last wrote with several more positive prospects in the pipeline. We have recently devised a revised method of presentation to our potential clients which seems to be having the desired effect as more seem interested in our products and don't reject us at the first appointment.

I still continue to be frustrated by clients who will not "come clean" if they do not wish to take up our services as outlined in my last entry. It is annoying when you have to make several attempts to contact them in only to be told that they don't want to proceed, having previously said that they would contact me either way, whatever their decision. To me this is simply impolite and bad manners.

On similar lines, another one of my hobbyhorses relating to peoples behaviour is their lack of response or acknowledgement of E Mails. I was raised to thank people for something that they had done for me, no matter how small that thing or their effort was. It follows therefore, and some may not think so, that it should work the other way round in that I might expect and welcome a note of thanks for something I have done for them.

It therefore surprises and annoys me that people vey rarely respond to an E Mail or a series of E Mails that I have sent them. For example, I was asked to provide some information to a person the other day which actually took me a few minutes to put together in both research and actually writing the E Mail. I duly sent it and have heard nothing back since. Now, I don't expect fullsome praised to be heaped on me by the person who requested this information, but I personally would have sent a return E Mail saying something like:

"thank you very much for your E Mail and the information which will prove most useful"

With the writing of this text and the extra clicking of the reply button, I estimate that this would have taken me about 20 seconds to respond. Not much time and effort I believe in relation to the time and effort I had put in from the other end.

I am not suggesting that every single E Mail sent is acknowledged in some way, "horses for courses" I would say. However, I do believe that when someone has made an effort on my behalf, the least they deserve is a "thank you". If nothing else, it confirms the safe receipt of my E Mail and that it has not just drifted off into cyberspace as they do from time to time.

Perhaps I am being a bit old fashioned in my outlook or just unrealistic in a age where everything is instant and people have no time. However, this is something I believe many of us could do much better with because as they say - "good manners cost nothing" - and in the example above only about 20 seconds of my time. I would be interested to hear other opinions on this subject. Am I just a lone voice crying in the wilderness or do I reflect what others think?

End of rant - thank you for reading this entry :-)