Message Not Received

Two weeks ago I had the unfortunate experience of losing power for forty-two hours.  When the power went out, I immediately called the electric cooperative which supplies my power.  I used my cell phone to do so.  My landline phone is cordless and runs on electricity.  It was not functioning.  Twenty-four hours later the power had not been restored.  This surprised me because the electric cooperative is usually very prompt at fixing problems.  Wondering the cause of the delay, I called the cooperative. 

The lady who answered responded defensively, “Our crews are working as hard as they can to get this fixed.  They have been working non-stop for twenty-four hours.”

“What is the problem?” I asked.

“They are slogging through fifteen inches of wet, heavy snow.  In some instances they have to put up new poles and string new wire.  All that must be double-checked.  They are doing the best they can.”

“But what is the problem?” I repeated.

Finally, she answered my question in an exasperated tone. “The snow took down trees and branches which took down power lines and poles.  Every one of our townships throughout the county is affected.  The problem is so massive we have brought in crews from several other cooperatives to help us.”

The problem took another eighteen hours to fix.

Shortly after the power came back on, I checked the messages on my backup voice mail that I access from my cordless phone.  The first one was from the electric cooperative thoroughly explaining the reason for the outage, stating that they were working hard on it, and informing that they had brought in additional crews to assist.  The message had been sent two days prior on the heels of the outage.  After listening to the message, I realized why the lady at the cooperative seemed so vague in her answers and exasperated over my questions.  She thought that I should have known all of that information because of the telephone message that the cooperative had sent.

I sat back and smiled.  Then I chuckled.  Finally, I laughed out loud. 

The electric cooperative had developed a plan for how to handle a massive outage.  A part of that plan was to inform those affected so that they would know what was going on.  All of that was very smart and commendable.  However, they missed one important consideration.  Most people today have cordless phones.  These phones run on electricity.  When the power is out, messages sent to those phones will not be received.  In order to have the plan work, the cooperative needed another way to contact people.  A cell phone would be a good option. 

Upon reflection, I realized that there is a lesson or two here for all of us.  One lesson is to be certain that your intended recipient can receive the message you are sending.  If your recipient can’t or won’t receive your message, you haven’t communicated, have you?  With today’s technology, many of us blissfully send out communications and immediately assume they have been received.  Perhaps we are not wise to make that assumption.

Another lesson is to look for the hiccup in your plans.  As you know, I am a big proponent of plans.  However, I know that, just like their creators, plans are not perfect.  Taking another look, especially by someone unfamiliar with the plan, is smart.  That person might see the hiccup.  Someone outside the cooperative might have noticed that those with cordless phones which operate on electricity would not receive the message. 

Take another look at your messages.  Are your intended recipients receiving them? 

This week's marketing trivia challenge is What instance have you experienced where you could not receive a message? E-mail me your answer.