How to Handle Phone Calls When You Have a Day Job?

[ngentot]

I'm about to launch my new website. It's basically about information on medical services in my local area. The way it works is that I will contact those medical services (by email initially) to ask them to advertise on my website.

It has occured to me that some of them may want to contact me by phone instead of by email. I used to work from home but now I have a consulting work that requires me to be at the client's office every day from noon to 7pm. So taking a call during these times is nearly impossible.

My first thought was to use an answering service to answer the phone and take a message when I'm not available. But then, would it be kinda "strange" if every time they try to call, I'm always "out of office"?

How would you do it? Any suggestion?

I don't want to use voicemail because some people simply will hang up and not leave a message. Telling them to communicate by email only doesn't seem convincing either.

Thanks.

[Essex_boy]

Some people have a service that forwards teh call to their mobile - depends on how your employer takes this.

I think a combination of teh two - mobile redirection and call answering service would work fine. You could tell them that your in the office two days a week (divert to mobile) and the rest is taken by your answering service.

[steve]

In the UK, BT offer call diversion.

Its costs about £12 per quarter, and will divert a call to another landline or mobile without the caller knowing.

You can turn it on and off from any phone, and set it to divert all calls, calls not answered in 15 seconds, or calls if your phone is engaged.

The only downside is you pay for the call from the diverted number to yourself.

[RedWolf]

I would go with the answering service. Almost all doctors and clinics use them (there are special ones just dealing with medical calls) so it would not be that out of the ordinary. If you are available in the mornings anyway, that sounds like a good fit. It is a bit more professional than a voice mail. The calls at work idea would probably not work well unless you are at a pretty well solitary job where no one else would notice. Getting client calls in a meeting is not be a good thing even if you don't answer.

[duckhunter]

Could the answering service take the customers order for you? If they want to use someone's service, how do you get the two together? Could they not do the same?

[hfwd]

Yes - some answering service can take orders from you (some are also do it 24 hrs). In a nutshell, you give them a script, telling them what to say when they pick up the phone & what the pitch is if the customer wants to order.

Be sure to shop around - they vary GREATLY in price & quality.

We used to have an answering service contracted to take orders & messages. Turns out that people browse online to shop online - orders from telephone comprise less than a couple of percent of our total orders, so we cancelled it.

[Sunshyn]

We've considered an answering service, but it wouldn't work in our situation. 90% of the calls we do get are for questions regarding timing and custom work which only the people doing the actual work (the 2 owners) would be able to answer. In any case, exceedingly few of our customers call, preferring to place their orders online.

Since moving our business online, we've been using a voicemail system, making it clear wherever our phone number is listed to expect to leave a message at first. After more than 8 years, the only person whose had a big problem with it happened to call a few weeks ago. She left a 10 minute long rant about having to leave a message while making it clear that she hadn't actually read the email she was calling about, which explained how to fix her mistake online.