The silence of the bosses

NEW customers and business ideas are being routinely turned away by British companies because directors refuse to take phone calls, research has found.

Getting hold of a top executive is almost twice as hard among British companies as it is in America, according to UK business consultants DMO. Not only are calls screened but even if a message does get through, there is almost no chance of a reply. A staggering 97% of British company bosses do not return phone calls from someone they don't know, even if it is proposing a business idea.

Similar studies in the US show that more than four in 10 chief executives will ring back. Failing to return calls could mean companies are losing potential business deals worth millions of pounds, says DMO. The report also found that in a company where the chief executive did not return calls, the same was likely of other executive ranks.

DMO rang 1,000 companies, asking to speak to executives of various ranks from sales director to chief executive, with a business proposal. DMO managing director Renee Botham, said: 'The findings validated much of what we already expected. Top-flight directors and many of their cohorts view calls as a nuisance and distraction rather than having the potential to grow their businesses.'

Even if the head of a company was too busy to take a call, then the caller should at least be passed on to a lower grade, says the report. Yet even trying to contact a brand manager failed eight out of 10 times with the first call, six out of 10 with the second and four out of 10 with the third.

DMO says this is worrying among a grade of management whose job it often was to exploit new business. Botham added: 'These people should be picking up their phones and returning all their calls.'

Among the various types of business, the worst ones to make contact with were consumer goods companies and banks. The best responses came from legal firms and the hotel industry.

The report said that many managers thought a voicemail message from someone they did not know would often be bad news so they rarely bothered to ring back.