Fine, or just quiet because nobody has checked lately?

For a while I assumed no news from one of my businesses meant everything there was fine. It took me too long to notice that quiet and fine are not the same thing, one just means nobody has looked lately. The businesses that actually needed nothing from me made noise in a different way, a small good number, a client who mentioned they were happy. The ones that just went silent were usually the ones I had stopped checking, not the ones that were actually stable. Curious how you tell the difference before it costs you something, or if you only find out after.