It’s inevitable: at some point, your client will give you the silent treatment. They probably don’t mean to make you blow steam from your ears -- it just happens -- and getting over the communication slump starts with walking a mile in their shoes. It’s important to remember that many companies are understaffed and stretched thin. And even though studies show that burnout is bad for business, we see it happen all the time. While it may be frustrating when you can’t get an answer from your client, it’s usually not the result of ill will or without reason. There’s a good chance your client lives in meetings for most of their days, leaving them with only a small window to take calls and answer emails. An empathic approach to your client relationships -- rather than an angry one -- will be better for both you and your client in the long run. Why Clients Go Dark There are several explanations for why your clients aren’t answering you. It could be as simple as email clutter. Haven’t we all tried to block off calendar time to clean out our inboxes, only to veer off course into this project or that phone call? We’re only human. Experts say you need an entire minute to recover from reading a single email. And at bare minimum, you’d need three hours a day dedicated only to reading and sending emails if you were to stay completely caught up on your inbox. Your client might not have the bandwidth to sift through their inbox every day. They could also be waiting on another department or team member to weigh in before they get back to you, and they just don’t [...]