Is Your Telephone Just a "Hello" Statue?
A phone call not returned may be an opportunity missed.
It's amazing to us how some people overlook one of the simplest, yet most effective ways of generating business—returning phone calls and emails.
Case in point:
Fred and I met a successful marketing consultant who offered us a free one hour consultation. We called the next day to set it up and left a message on his answering machine. Two or three days later, thinking he must not have received the message, we called again and left another message. Nothing. Finally, we sent him an email. That was a month ago. We still have not heard from him.
What would you think?
Here is a person who coaches people how to market their businesses and yet he doesn't seem to know the first rule of customer service.
So . . . what could have happened?
Perhaps he is traveling and has no phone or email contact available to him. This makes no sense in the business world. There should be someone handling his messages—or at the very least he could have a message on his answering machine saying when he would be available to return phone calls and emails.
Or could he have thought we wouldn't take him up on his offer? Or realized he couldn't really help us in our line of work? After all, we're all human.
A friend of ours took on a restoration job that he soon realized was too big for him and had issues that needed a different expertise then he had. His choices were to walk away with no explanation, or admit his shortcomings to the client. It wasn't easy for him, but by keeping his integrity; he actually got more work because he made contacts in finding someone who could do the job. And because of his work ethics and honesty; the clients referred him to others.
Even if this marketing consultant ever calls us back, our confidence and opinion of his marketing abilities has been jeopardized. Not only has he lost our potential business, but that of all the people we would have referred to him.
What potential possibilities are you missing because of unreturned messages?
You are a walking representation of your image and everything you do reflects that image.
Lee Sibler, www.creativelee.com
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