Emails come, the phone rings, instant messages pop up and you have deadlines. You wonder how am I ever going to get anything done. You think to yourself, I will close off the world except maybe if my boss contacts me or a really large customer.
When you ignore a customer buying products from business, they will go elsewhere. Maybe that is not so bad for your “C” customers. But that type of habit easily spreads over to your biggest “A” customers. So grudgingly you respond to those emails and calls.
So it is easy when the work is overloaded, outside customers are screaming, to ignore the people in your own firm who happen not be your boss, contacting you to resolve problems. Ignoring them repeatedly, though, has risks.
The people in your company contacting you are just as much your customers and the outside purchasers of your product. They have jobs to do, and if you are preventing them from doing their job timely, then they will directly or indirectly complain to your boss of a regular lack of response. Repeated complaints weigh heavily on your boss.
Now, I have run into bosses, who encourage and sometimes order you to ignore the pleas from the field. In many cases, the complaints catch up to them too.
So set up some time to respond to others who are contacting you. Many times they will work with you if have to delay a request. And by responding and telling them what is going on, you are respecting them, and that respect will be returned.