Dr. Carolyn Lee reflects on a different cliché each week. Recently, in her blog “Going It Alone,” she reflects about traveling solo. This week Carolyn explores the cliché, your call is important to us.

Learn more about Dr. Carolyn Lee on her biography page or investigate 29 more clichés in her latest book, Keep Your Eye on the Ball And Other Clichès to Live By. 

Your Call Is Important to Us 

A “cliché” is a predictable, unoriginal phrase or an idea that has been used so often that it no longer has much meaning. “Your call is important to us” qualifies on all counts. So why, you might wonder, do all companies and services insist upon repeating it to us every thirty seconds when we try to reach them by phone. Maybe it’s because they know we couldn’t stand sustained silence. We couldn’t tolerate getting no response whatsoever to our call; we couldn’t handle thinking we were being ignored altogether. No, we don’t like to be ignored. We communicators need a response of some kind, some indication that we have been heard, that our message has been received.     

I just found an evite in my email file that I thought I had responded to weeks ago, but I was listed among the people—quite a number of them—who had never RSVP’d. It’s been nearly six months since I sent a wedding gift to the daughter of a friend of mine. I don’t even know if it was delivered. Not long ago I received a particularly nice gift from a friend. I, of course, said “thank you” at the time. I meant to follow up with a handwritten note, but I forgot. I’m still waiting for a response to a lengthy email I sent to somebody almost three weeks ago. Maybe tomorrow? I saw on Facebook that someone I’ve known for a long time was having a birthday. It would’ve been very nice of me to make a congratulatory comment—or at least “liked” the post, but—I didn’t do it. What’s wrong with us?     

As you undoubtedly know, “RSVP” is an initialism of the French phrase, “répondez s’il vous plait,” which literally means, “Respond if you please.” I don’t think it means “respond if you feel like it” or “respond if you have nothing better to do,” although that seems to be the way a large segment of the populace interprets it. The number of people who fail to respond to wedding and party invitations is alarming, especially since, in this age of technology, it is so easy just to click on the appropriate box. “I’m too busy” doesn’t really work as an excuse for not responding to a text. “Got your text. I’ll get back to you soon” takes less than a minute; a “thumbs up” emoji takes less than that. 

What you might not know is that responding is the fifth and final stage of the listening process. It comes after receiving, understanding, evaluating, and remembering. “Receiving” can include any form of taking in information—hearing a spoken message, getting a letter, a text, or an email, even observing nonverbal behavior. “Responding” can take a variety of forms: spoken words, a written letter, text, or email, a facial expression, or all manner of nonverbal signs and symbols.  

It’s important to realize that the absence of spoken or written words is also a form of responding. Failing to speak or write or show up are, quite literally, examples of nonverbal communication. In other words, failing to respond is a response. We all tend to assign meaning to the absence of communication, and the meaning we assign is almost never good or positive. When we don’t receive an answer to an email or a text, our first impulse is to think that the person on the other end doesn’t care enough to respond. Or that person has other things to do that take priority over our request for communication. When someone doesn’t answer our phone call or call us back in a timely fashion, we might leap to the conclusion that that person doesn’t wish to talk to us or just has better things to do. And it hurts to think that someone might choose not to communicate with us. 

The interesting thing about nonverbal communication is that it is going to happen—whether we want it to or not. It is going to happen—either voluntarily or involuntarily. People are going to assign meaning to our behavior. On a given day, you might think, “I don’t feel like communicating today. I don’t feel up to answering that long email or having a lengthy conversation, so I’m just going to read a book and turn off my phone.” But not answering that email and refusing to answer the phone are behaviors that communicate. They send a message. Not responding is responding. 

What we need from each other is some kind of feedback—some evidence that the words we speak or the texts we write or the invitations we send or the calls we make have been received, that someone has heard us and cares enough to respond. What we need to say to each other is “Your message is important to me”—and mean it.  

Want to Read More? 

Check out Dr. Carolyn Lee’s blogs on her website, she features a new cliché each week or you can order her new book, Keep Your Eye on the Ball And Other Clichès to Live By. Want to know more about the woman behind the words? Read more about Carolyn here. We hope you enjoyed this article learning more about the cliché, your call is important to us.