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Almost all of my enquiries are generated through my website. My contacts page clearly states that people should only call during normal office hours but they persist in doing so at the strangest times. I got a call tonight (Sunday) at 7pm! A week or two ago I got a call at 10.40pm. My wife and I got a real fright, thinking something was wrong with the family.
I appreciate that this was partly my fault for not having a dedicated business line but what in the name of "whatever" inspires people to make business calls at such unearthly times?
Does anyone else have this problem?
I cannot stand trivial interruptions. I work in continuous manic bursts for hours on end. In addition we get hundreds of phone solicitations every month. So . . . I never directly answer the phone. I let the machine pick it up.
The phone is **intentionally** in another room from where I work. I never answer it. If someone important calls, I return the call immediately. None of my customers are put off by this and completely understand. In fact they are more appreciative of my immediate call back than anything.
It can be argued, "Well, if I call someone and they don't pick up the phone, I certainly won't be doing business with THEM!" At the risk of sounding egotistical (guilty as charged,) someone with this mind set is going to be a pain in the butt customer, I don't care how much money they have. I don't need their business.
Then just put that second line on one phone in whatever you're using as an office. During off hours, turn that phone off.
People call at weird hours sometimes just because they only want to leave a message and not speak to someone. I've no idea why that is.
FWIW, I have a relatively busy home office phone wise. I keep a seperate phone line(s). Otherwise I'm mixing my answering machine with my business, and I don't think that's good. Or I get kids answering - and so on.
However, I'm of the opinion that customer service is a priority. While I do place restrictions on when I feel obligated to answer the phone, there's plenty of times in the evening or weekend when I'm working anyway that I'll answer the phone or email. People appreciate it.
It can be argued, "Well, if I call someone and they don't pick up the phone, I certainly won't be doing business with THEM!" At the risk of sounding egotistical (guilty as charged,) someone with this mind set is going to be a pain in the butt customer, I don't care how much money they have. I don't need their business.
My time is valuable too - when I'm working with someone I actually expect them to pick up the phone when I call.
Yes, but would you make a business call at 10.40pm? My point is that I just would not consider calling anyone at that time of night. What makes people do it?
then use a script to make it show for only certain hours of the day.
This has a slight problem. Knowing customers, they write down the number, and call you whenever they get an idea or seek for an advice.
Long since i removed my phone number from the site, I still get phone calls from customers, and it doesn't seem very pleasing to wake up in the middle of the night for usually very small order.
The smaller the customer's potential the greater the noise :)
Even large companies don't employ people 24 hours to answer these sort of calls so what is wrong with these people?
If no one is in, the voicemail catches most of them including one woman who left 4 messages, the last three of which were complaining that nobody returned her call, the last one was pretty abusive and contained language that I would not repeat in mixed company. When I phoned her on Tuesday (I made her wait a day as "punishment" for the foul language)she was a pleasant as could be and thanked me for getting back to her.
There's nothing worse than getting the call from hell right at the end of the day, and for some reason this seems to be prime time for nutters.
Yes, but would you make a business call at 10.40pm?
10:40EST is 7:40PST and 7:40 isn't a bad time to call.
Heck, that's 6:40 and 5:40 Hawaii and Alaska times, too, both a very reasonable time to call.
Also, some people might not be able to call until then, or stumbled across your site at that time and expect to just leave a message. They might also be calling expecting to hear a message with your hours (people tend to never read this on a web site).
would you make a business call at 10.40pm?
Also now that lots of businesses have 24 hour call centres it doesn't necessarily seem that odd to call at an unsociable hour. Some people probably just try calling on the offchance that maybe someone will be there or they can leave a message.
We've found that almost all phone calls fall into the following categories, none of which we want to waste time with on the phone:
1) wrong number or hangups
2) solicitations
3) questions that could be just as easily answered online
4) off-line people that are going to require a lot of hand holding
Yes, we probably lose a few customers this way. But we consider them acceptable losses and the gains (more productive time, focusing more on better clients) outweighs them.
Also now that lots of businesses have 24 hour call centres it doesn't necessarily seem that odd to call at an unsociable hour.
Even when my website makes it quite clear that I am a freelancer and also tells them to call during business hours?
Even when my website makes it quite clear that I am a freelancer and also tells them to call during business hours?
LOL, there is a certain subset of humanity who will read this and call you immediately just to make sure they understood it. There's a much larger group who simply refuse to read.
If I were you I'd separate the numbers, changing whichever is easier - I'd go insane very quickly if I got called at home by customers.
The phones produce a different bell tone based based on the library the number matches, or whether its unrecognised.
I think it's also possible to send unrecognised numbers straight to ansaphone without the phone ringing, but I haven't tried this yet.
