How do you judge a reference not returned?
Or do you? A conversation between my co-founder, Matt and myself made me stop and think. If someone was asked to give a reference and never responded; is that a negative mark on their profile? Is it possible to construe what a lack of a response correlates to? It could be that the company was busy and forgot about it or it ended up on the bottom of the pile. It could mean that for whatever reason, the company doesn’t respond to any requests for a reference, regardless of the caliber of the customer being reviewed. OR…
Imagine if a large, important customer of yours is slow to pay and difficult to get a hold of when there are payment discrepancies. Likely, they have a large A/P department, and you might not have a direct point of contact to help you. You’re left with no-reply email addresses or generic ap@bigco addresses where you can send an email but not have any assurance that you will hear back.
How do you respond to a credit reference if you fear that it somehow, even though it shouldn’t, might end up getting back to the customer. Personally, I don’t think this is even remotely likely to happen but I truly understand the fear. One safe option would be to just not respond. You might just continue to ignore 2nd and 3rd requests and/or give excuses long enough that they eventually leave you alone.
Let me know what you would do if you were the reference provider in this scenario. Would you ignore the request, give a truthful response albeit not positive, or respond in a way that makes the customer look good, even though it’s not reality.
Also – as a credit provider – how do you judge references that never come back? Ignore it, view it negatively, or something else? I’d love to hear your thoughts!
