You send the reference request. Two days later, nothing, so you send a friendly follow-up. Two days after that, a third email, this one with the deadline in bold. A week has now gone. The candidate is ready, the school is waiting, and the reference is still sitting unread in a headteacher's inbox.
Then a colleague picks up the phone, gets through to the school office, and the reference is done before lunch.
If you've run a desk, you've watched this happen. An email sits in a full inbox as one more task for later. A ringing phone is a moment someone can settle in a minute or two, and most people would rather settle it than let it ring. That's the whole difference, and it explains almost everything about why chasing by phone works when chasing by email stalls.
I spent seven years on the agency side chasing references. Here's what I came to understand about why the channel matters so much, and the honest problem it creates once you try to do it properly.
Why the phone works when email doesn't
An email is a task. A phone call is a moment.
A reference request by email asks the referee to do something later. Open it, find the form, think about the answers, come back when there's time. For a busy person, "later" is where requests go to die. There's no cost to putting it off today, so they put it off today, and tomorrow the same maths applies.
A phone call removes the "later" entirely. The referee doesn't have to schedule anything. They answer the questions while you're on the line, and the job is finished the moment they put the phone down. You're not asking them to add a task to their list. You're asking them for ninety seconds, right now, and ninety seconds is easy to give.
This is the same reason the reference chasing guide puts a phone call on day seven rather than a fourth email. There's more on the silent-referee situation here, but the short version is that once two written attempts have gone quiet, another email rarely changes anything. The phone does.
School offices answer phones. They bin form links.
Most reference requests in education go to a school. A school office is built to route calls. It has a main number, someone nearly always picks it up, and passing a message to the right person is the job that office does all day. Ring at mid-morning or just after lunch and you'll usually reach a human who can either help you or tell you exactly who can.
That same office treats an emailed form link as low-priority admin. It lands in a shared inbox, it doesn't have a name on it, and it competes with everything else the school is dealing with that week. The phone gets you past the pile. A link joins the pile.
Another agency will pick up all day
For supply staff, the referee is often another agency rather than a headteacher, because supply teachers agency-hop and the referee is usually whoever employed them last. That works in your favour on the phone. A consultant at another agency answers their phone as part of the job. It's how they place people. Call their direct line and you'll usually get them, and they understand exactly what you need because they chase the same references themselves.
Email that same consultant and you're one more request in an inbox they're trying to clear between candidate calls. Ring them and you're a two-minute conversation between two people who both know the drill.
Some referees will talk when they won't write
This one matters more in care than in education, and it matters a lot. A referee whose English is a second language may be perfectly happy to answer your questions out loud and genuinely reluctant to write them down. A form is a test of their written English. A conversation isn't. They'll tell you everything you need to know on the phone and leave the same form blank for a fortnight.
In care work especially, the referee is often a previous registered manager who may not be a confident writer in English but knows the candidate well and will say so plainly when you call. Meet them where they can actually answer, and the reference comes back the same day.
How to run phone chasing well on a desk
The phone works, but only if you run the call properly. A vague call gets a vague answer and a promise to "send something over", which puts you back where you started. Here's how to make the call the last step rather than another delay.
Send it in writing first, then call. The written request gives you a record and a form to point to. The call is what gets it done. Don't lead with the phone cold. Lead with the request, then chase by phone once it's gone quiet.
Call the office, not the mobile. For a school-based referee, the main office number beats a personal mobile every time. Offices answer. Mobiles go to voicemail while someone's teaching. Keep the mobile for when the office route has genuinely failed. For a referee at another agency, their direct line is fine, because answering the phone is their job.
Have your questions in front of you. Before you dial, know exactly what you need: dates of employment, suitability for work with children, reason for leaving, any concerns. Ask them in order. The goal is to finish the whole reference on this one call so the referee never has to think about it again. A call that ends with "can you just email me the rest" has only half worked.
Write it down as you go, and read it back. A verbal reference is a proper record as long as you capture it properly. Note who you spoke to, their role, the date and time, and their answer to each question, taken down while you're on the line. Read the key points back to confirm you've got them right. A dated, attributed, specific note stands up. A half-remembered summary written an hour later does not.
Done this way, one call replaces the fourth, fifth and sixth email that were never going to work anyway.
The honest problem with phone chasing
Here's the catch, and it's the reason most desks quietly drift back to email despite knowing the phone works better.
Calls cost consultant time. Real, expensive, focused time. You can't fire off ten calls between meetings the way you can fire off ten emails. Each one needs you present: dialling, waiting, getting passed around the office, having the conversation, writing it all down. A consultant actively placing candidates can already spend several hours a week on reference admin. Do all of that chasing by phone and the hours climb fast.
So the desk makes a rational trade. Email scales and phone calls don't, so email wins, even though everyone knows the call would land. The better channel loses to the cheaper one. References come back slower, placements start later, and the consultant spends the time they did have on the phone chasing the few that absolutely couldn't wait.
That's the real problem. The phone isn't beaten because it doesn't work. It's beaten because it works and nobody has the hours to use it at scale.
What PassQ does about it
This is the gap PassQ was built to close.
PassQ has a voice agent that makes the calls for you. It rings referees on a real phone, gets through the office, asks your questions in order, captures the answers, and logs the whole thing as a dated record. It's live today, handling hundreds of reference calls a month across the desks it runs.
It also speaks the referee's language. If the previous registered manager is more comfortable in Portuguese or Polish, the agent switches into their language and accent and gets the answer, on the phone, the same day. That's the channel that always worked, running without costing your consultants their afternoons.
We ran an education agency for seven years, and this is the tool we never had. The phone was always the answer. Now the phone doesn't cost you the time.
See how it fits your desk on the pricing page, or book a demo and we'll play you a call.
Frequently asked questions
Why does a phone call get a reference back when emails don't? An email sits in a full inbox as one more task for later. A ringing phone is a moment someone can settle in a minute or two, and most people would rather settle it than let it ring. The referee never has to schedule your request. They just answer the questions while you're on the line.
When should I call a referee instead of emailing? Send the request in writing first so there's a record and a form to point to. If nothing comes back within a few working days, call. Don't send a third and fourth email hoping this one lands. Once two written attempts have gone quiet, the phone is the faster route every time.
Should I call the school office or the referee's mobile? For a school-based referee, call the main office number rather than chasing a personal mobile. Offices are built to route calls and someone nearly always answers. For a referee at another agency, the consultant's direct line works well, because they answer their phone all day. Save the mobile for when the office route has genuinely failed.
What should I ask on a reference chase call to get it done in one go? Have your questions in front of you before you dial: dates of employment, suitability for work with children, reason for leaving, any concerns. Ask them in order and write the answers down as you go. The aim is to finish the reference on the call, so the referee never has to come back to it.
How do I keep a phone reference as a proper record? Write down what was said while you're on the call: who you spoke to, their role, the date, the time, and their answers to each question. Read the key points back to confirm them. A dated, attributed note of a verbal reference stands up as a record, as long as it's specific and taken at the time rather than reconstructed from memory later.
PassQ runs the chasing for education and care recruitment agencies: the calls, the follow-ups, and the audit trail, in any language, on a real phone. If your team knows the phone works but can't spare the hours, get in touch.