HOW MANY RINGS? -- by Steve Nadis
I got a call from the other day and, as I was at my desk, I grabbed the phone on the first ring. "The first ring?" a friend said at the other end of the line. "My aren't we overanxious today." I was reminded of a scene in the movie "Swingers" in which a guy asked how long, after getting a girl's phone number, he had to wait before calling her. I can't remember the advice he got but he was told that the "industry standard" was something on the order of a week. Which brings up the question at hand: What about telephone rings? If one shows signs of desperation and five will land you in voicemail, what establishes the right tone for the rest of the conversation: two, three, or four? What I'm getting after here, I guess, is this: What's the "industry standard" for telephone rings?
