ANSWER THE PHONE! Just a reminder

[WISE]

I know we have all read it a hundred times...but if you are doing water damage work you gotta answer live 24/7. Last week I added another question to the usual rundown... "Were we the first company you called? How did you hear about us?" Most are referrals, but the only 2 we had last week came from the phone book. One said we were the 2nd company she called (The guy at co 1 did answer but was kindof rude she said so she told him not to worry about it) The second one, we were the fourth company called. No one answered at the first three...the man said...this wasn't a situation I was going to leave a message or page the other number and wait for a call back.

Now I wish we were the first called, but I'll take em anyway I can get em. BTW, both of those came in about 8 pm so not even really late!

Just thought I would pass along the reminder especially for us lil guys--we spend all this money to get the phone to ring for floods; we gotta get it when it does.

WISE

 

[Kevin Hamer]

The reason I have an answering service, someone live answering the phone. I have heard several times on how we were the only one to answer the phone or the only company to return their call when its after hours.

 

[Steve Toburen]

You are absolutely right, WISE. I'll admit it. I was just obsessive/compulsive enough in business that I had a business extension phone that rang in my house the entire time I owned the business. I can't tell you how many emergency water losses we closed just because an interested, caring, motivated person (either Sioux or I) answered the phone at any hour.

Kevin, the answering service concept CAN work with the right service. However, be careful on this one. Insist that your service give you an exact call log which will show you how many calls they did not close. I also advice our SFS members to give their after-hours service a written script to guide the call. As WISE points out, these are desperate people with sensitive "antennas". If they sense even the slightest bit of incompetence on the part of the dispatcher they will be on to the next listing in the Yellow Pages!

Steve Toburen CR
Director of Training
Jon-Don's Strategies for Success

PS The funny thing is even after selling my company I kept the business extension in my house. Three months after closing the sale I am taking a emergency call at 3 AM and it hit me, "What the heck am I doing?" (Actually I think it was Sioux that said this and her language was not so polite!) I took the extension out the next day and the new owner decided to trust in an answering service as he didn't want to "be bothered after hours". He is not in business today.

BTW, Big Billy Yeadon and I will be in Portland next month, May 14-18, for our very first West Coast SFS. Come see us and Yeadon will spring for the first round of micro-brews!

 

[Desk Jockey]

I wouldn't blame the competition entirely, Yellow Page salesman are notorious for asking "Do you offer 24-hours service?" "Put it in there!"

We use to hear the "no one else would return my call" a lot, but not as much in the last few years. If you 24-hr service in the book, you'll receive calls. (and lot of price shoppers)

We use an answering service and they do email the log each morning which works well for tracking calls. We also have them call the On Call supervisor first, but if he does not return the call within 5-minutes the begin calling the other supervisors.

This has worked to self police each other, nobody likes getting the call when it's not their week! :x

 

[Tahoesteve]

I tried the forward to cell phone method...did not work.

I hate to lose out on those missed calls so I am currently trying out the program from Perceptionist. They answer the phone, provide my information, answer questions and book jobs. They only get paid for the calls that result in jobs that are scheduled and cleaned. I will update in a few weeks.

 

[bobrog]

Gee, Michael, that shows you that was she jumping around in the phone book. If she had started with the "A's", you would never have gotten the call. She never called us :roll: Must have been that pretty logo that caught her eye.

 

[WISE]

Yeah you got me by a few letters! One of the others was a BIG franchise...No live answer??? how is that possible?

Hey I saw your commercial on TV sat morning...nice work!

Also--

one of my techs walked from a "bleeder" couch today. Besides bleeding issues, it has some glittery crap also. The lady tried to clean it with something awhile back and made a mess....Ryan took one look at it and said ummm I don;t think so! BYE!

Anyway--Troy/Gigi/John wanna take a look at it???

(It's closeby--Grand Oaks)

WISE

 

[bobrog]

Ain't no way, we just had our experience with a $20,000 Turkish wool rug. It was such a bleeder that whole fringe was red, just from the Charleston Humidity. When we ran our first test with neutral ph, the white towel was a matching red

We Rug Badgered it, bleached the fringes and returned to client. He was so delighted he told the BNI group that it was the best cleaning job he had ever seen.

one of my techs walked from a "bleeder" couch today. Besides bleeding issues, it has some glittery crap also. The lady tried to clean it with something awhile back and made a mess....Ryan took one look at it and said ummm I don;t think so! BYE!

Anyway--Troy/Gigi/John wanna take a look at it???

(It's closeby--Grand Oaks)

WISE