Upon detecting (201) a communication need for a group of communication recipients that entails attempting to make at least one transmission to each of the communication recipients in the group (wherein at least one of the communication recipients has both a scheduled personal communication opportunity and a scheduled group communication opportunity), one automatically uses (202) whichever of the scheduled communication opportunities occurs first to make the at least one transmission to the communication recipient(s) for which this option applies. In one approach this response is further informed and influenced by one or more other factors, such as but not limited to system loading (203), group size and/or known whereabouts (204), and/or whether a recent transmission response was received (205).