Can you imagine a situation where a sales professional chose not to call a customer back, even after the customer called and e-mailed multiple times? This exact scenario happened to me, and unfortunately I was the customer. While the situation may be a bit unique, I feel it's a great example to discuss.

U.S. Rep. Frank Guinta represents New Hampshire's first district. He was also a two-term mayor of Manchester from 2006 to 2010. I am a big fan of Congressman Guinta and feel he has done an outstanding job in a very challenging environment in Washington, D.C. He certainly had his work cut out for him when he took office, and it's looking like that battle will never end.

I was also impressed by Frank Guinta's work when he was mayor of Manchester. He took a hard line on raising taxes and in my opinion made a lot of difficult and controversial decisions that were for the better of the city. He also held city departments accountable for their performance, and that is not an easy thing to do.

I have interacted with Guinta a fair amount over the years. He appointed me to the Manchester Planning Board where I served for more than four years before I moved outside of the city and had to resign. I participated in several political campaigns in which Guinta also participated, so I frequently saw him at events and other places. I also supported him in his run for Congress and yes, I did vote for him.

This past January, my brother was returning from several deployments overseas. He hadn't been on American soil in nearly two and a half years. My family and I decided to surprise him and be there to greet him when he arrived at the airport. We all wanted to show our support to him for his service to our country, so I called Guinta on his personal cell phone and left him a message about the special welcome we were planning on throwing for my brother. I asked if he could attend or at the very least make some suggestions on other ways we could make his return more memorable. Congressman Guinta never called me back.

To give him the benefit of the doubt, I called his personal cell phone. Perhaps that's not the proper protocol to contact him. And it's also possible he changed his phone number. I'm not sure. I was disappointed by the lack of response, but it's not the end of the world.

Last month, I was putting together another event for a veteran. I wanted to engage Guinta again and invite him to an event where we recognized an individual who recently returned from Iraq. This time, instead of calling Guinta directly, I called his office and spoke to the person who handles interactions with veterans. It took me numerous calls and messages to finally connect with him, but at least it happened.

I explained what I was doing and invited Congressman Guinta to the event we were holding. The contact at Congressman Guinta's office spent time asking questions about the event and also proposed several dates that would work best for his schedule. We had a tentative date on the calendar and I began to work on the logistics for the event.

A few weeks before the event, I attempted to follow up via email and phone to confirm the details of the event. He went dark on me and wasn't responding to my emails or phone calls. After three emails and two voicemail messages, I gave up.

While this is not exactly a customer calling a business, in my opinion, I am the customer to Congressman Guinta's office.

I can tell you that if I found out someone on my sales team blatantly blew off a customer and did not respond to them, they wouldn't have a job. And the same would go for me as well. In the business world, customers are the sole reason you have a job. In the political world, your constituents are the reason you are in office.

While I don't fault Congressman Guinta personally for this blunder, I do think a discussion should be had with his staff about professional courtesy and how to treat and interact with their “customers.” Nobody is immune from accountability.

Thompson (cthompson@catch22solutions.com) writes Closing the Deal weekly for the Sunday News.