"The question of the universe"

A comment on a previous post brought up an interesting point: "[W]hat is the trick in getting people to call you back after inquiring on their ads?!" It's a really good question, and it's also one that I don't have an answer to. But I'll tell you what I've had success with, and what little I know in this post.
Every three months, I have to do a "market survey." It's where I call around to comparable properties pretending to look for an apartment to get a sense of what other people are charging for apartments. Some managers are great about calling back (Emily at the La Salle and that girl at Ladd's Addition come to mind). Others are not so great. In 7 years, the manager of Wellesley Court has never returned my call. So I understand the frustration.
Here's a list of things that I hope will help. But before I try to work the little bullet points on this, I want to stress that A) This is all just from my point of view and that none of this is an official rulebook sort of deal and B) The likelihood of an apartment manager returning your call is inversely proportional to how cool the apartment is. Okay, here we go.

• Don't respond to a craigslist ad via email by typing that you'd like more information and to please call you at 503-xxx-xxxx. No apartment manager is going to respond to an email with a phone call.
• Most of us have caller ID, so make sure your phone number doesn't show up as "RESTRICTED" or "UNAVAILABLE." I get twice as many telemarketers as you do because someone is always trying to sell me crappy resident gift baskets, vinyl windows, carpet cleaning, and the like.
  
• I've thought about this all day, and I think that the best time to call is between 10am and 11:30am. The second best time to call is between 1:30pm and 4pm. I'm basing this on how my day goes. Centralized leasing centers that don't have on-site resident managers like me are probably totally different.
• If you leave a message, be brief but say your phone number twice--especially if you're calling from a mobile phone from an elevator or something.
  
• On the brevity note, we're all pretty well versed in Fair Housing Laws, so details in your message such as your marital status, race, ADA, religion, and such are irrelevant. Including that in your message or email perks our ears up and makes us think we're being "mystery shopped" or set up for a sting. We're paranoid.
• Be sure to say in your message how you found out about the apartments. The only reason you need to do this is because there are some websites like rent dot com that promise you $100 if you rent an apartment you find through them. We don't want to pay that. Hopefully, our info isn't on sites like that, but sometimes they sneak on there.
  

There are a lot of other things that can improve your chances in getting people to call you back, but it's 7:30 now and I really need to get some dinner. I'm going to put this post in the "links" section on the left and add to it as often as I can think of new stuff. If you've read through some of this blog, you'll know that I'm not interested in selling you anything, and that I really just want to help you find a place to live that you'll actually like. But seriously, I have no idea why we don't call you back sometimes. Thanks for bringing this up, GuyNPDX.