Who answers your phone?
Yourself?
Wife?
Secretary?
Me or my wife. If I’m busy it rolls to her phone.
My wife or I.
Same here. Btw- it was a multiple choice poll…
Benita
robin or wendy. i like to if i’m here, but they generally beat me to it.
Office assistant
I do, even when up a ladder, or hanging on a rope
Me or my voicemail. I work solo
Lynn answers the phone here at Noble Window Cleaning along with help from Brittany who is part time. Lynn is my wife and Brittany is my niece. For the first five years, I answered all calls and was hard pressed to relinquish that duty. In the early years I thought of the phone as our cash register. I still do. Listen to the prospect, hear what they are saying, have a solution to their problems and close. Lynn is good. Brittany is a rising star and really understands the importance of first contact and how to [B]shut up and listen[/B].
does anyone use a phone answering service ?
if so who?
Voicemail
Over the years I grew to hate answering the phone. Hired someone in the office this year and will never go back. Is our office help the long term answer, probably not, but she answers the phone and pushes paper.
I’ve been finding myself extremely busy or talking to a customer when the phone rings. I feel as though its a negative moment of truth when I cant answer the phone promptly. I also find myself to be out in the field, with limited access to scheduling information. I feel as though it could be a big problem as I start to grow.
I’m sure everyone will think this is insane:
For 19 years, no one has answered my phone. We use a voice mail box.
It has worked great for us. Call the number on the trucks, marketing materials, and you’ll never talk to a real person.
I check it multiple times per day. However, we do often give customers a direct cell line, mine usually. Our crew foreman also has business cards with his cell number on them. As we primarily do large commercial, most communication is email, or cell to one of us on site. A lot of our customers know this, and actually like it: “I’ll just leave you a message”, or if its urgent, they call the cell. I don’t want any of us taking calls on ladders, ropes, or lifts that aren’t directly involved in that job. And I don’t want to answer my phone on vacation, weekends, and evenings. Using the voicemail line has always created a buffer that helps us control communication. When we do give someone a cell number, they feel good about it; preferred customer status (even if most of them have it).
As we always vet our customers in advance, an initial call to that voicemail line gives us at least a few minutes to research if we want to take on this particular client, or facility. We can prepare a response, or a referral, if we don’t want them.
I’m sure if we did a lotta residential, I’d use my cell on all marketing material (“Call and talk to real person, etc”). But as it stands now, cell numbers are on a need to know basis.
I know its unusual, but its worked well for us for a long time.
Myself…I try to take all calls and not let it go to voicemail…#1 complaint I hear, " I called and can’t get a person on the phone"… Or “non-responsive”. If I’m unable to take notes and numbers…I discuss the situation and then kindly ask for them to call back and leave me their addy and other info on my voicemail…works 100% of the time so far. Then I follow up that evening if need be. So some people actually call me twice…but they get a live person the 1st time almost every time…I think that’s important, I know my customers appreciate it.
our incoming lines have distinctive rings. if i hear it ring twice, i shout “money call!” just to remind us about priorities - the client is not an interruption to our business, the client is the reason for our business.
i’ve heard “wow, you’re the first company i called with a live person answering!” way too often to do it any other way. we have three lines that rollover to live answer as many as possible. on the weekends, the office ladies take turns having it forwarded to their cells. it’s been worth every penny.
Robin!!!
All new potential customers come thru me. If it’s an already existing customer I’m fine letting my office assistant deal with them. But new blood is all me. No employee (for now) is going to sell the way I do. More moves than a rubber duck, yea…
Surprised by how many people use voicemail. I didn’t think anybody left messages anymore. I know I don’t if I’m calling a business. Occasionally I will on a friends voicemail but …business…no.
To answer the question. I answer the phone if available, if not then it gets diverted to an answering service who take a message and forward it on to me and I call him/her back. Real cheap when you pay per call. I use this site Call Answering Service, Telephone Answering Service, Phone Answering, alldayPA
Would love to have my own secretary but unfortunately not at that stage of business (yet!!) so for now this set up works fine.
