The Art of Follow-up

In the business and professional world, you shouldn’t send a letter or e-mail unless you intend some result. If you send out a missive and don't achieve the result, you’ve not only wasted your time but you have now told the recipient that it's OK to ignore you. So much for relevance!

It goes without saying that the best way to get a response is to craft your letter well in the first place. But that is the subject of another discussion-- here the subject matter is how to follow up when you have not received an answer, or a proper answer, in a reasonable period of time.

The trick is to set the table. You need to let the recipient know you are expecting an answer and that you won’t be ignored. If the matter is time-sensitive, don’t leave the door open with vague language like “in due course” or “at your earliest convenience”. Use precise language such as “I trust that you can get back to me by the end of the month.”

An extremely useful device is the “diary date” ending. At the end of the letter or e-mail, you insert a line in bold caps, thus: DIARY DATE: February 2, 2018. And then you actually diarize it in your calendar!

When the date comes and goes, as it likely will, you send a follow-up: “We note that the diary date for our letter of January 19, 2018, a copy of which is attached for your reference, has arrived without any response from you. We would be grateful for your immediate attention to this matter.” And then you insert a new diary date with approximately half the delay time. You repeat this courteously but with increasing firmness until you get an answer.

When being further ignored is no longer an option, it may be necessary to phone. If you do so, don’t go for the jugular, but give the recipient an opportunity to redeem himself: “Bill, I just wanted to make sure you were getting my correspondence.” More often than not you’ll get a written response the same day.

Be careful, by the way, that you don’t accept a weasley telephone response when it is important that you have a written record. If you need something in writing, don’t take second-best.

If the recipient makes it clear that the phone message is all you're going to get, then sit down at your computer immediately and compose a confirming letter or e-mail: "This is to confirm our telephone conversation of this morning in which you advised that you do not intend to pursue the O'Brien purchase." And send it. It's all part of the record.

Very occasionally it’s necessary to “go up the chain”. Handle this with kid gloves, but handle it. Be careful, be diplomatic-- don’t make an enemy unnecessarily. But sometimes getting a written answer is important enough that you need to go over the head of the unresponsive “correspondent”.

From time to time, you will never get a response. That is sometimes all the answer you need. Your lawyer will be glad to have that one-sided paper trail.

As with all business and professional correspondence, always keep in mind that your written words may end up being scrutinized in court or on the front page of the newspaper. When your day comes, you will be grateful that you avoided intemperate, inflammatory or vague language. Remember that you are making a record with which you may have to live.