This morning I had to contact a few businesses. In nearly every case, I was trying to get payment details so that I could send the business money. In every case, I was unable to get through to speak to a live person and had to leave a message so that I could get a call back.
Now, instead being able to wrap up my business in less than an hour, I will be interrupted this afternoon five times as each business calls me back at THEIR convenience.
As a freelancer I understand not wanting to be interrupted by phone calls. After all, if I don't get my work done, I don't get paid.
However, the companies that I called were not freelancers, but instead rather large organizations. They could afford to have customer service representatives on staff. Still, they sent me to voice mail rather than to a live person.
The whole frustrating experience got me to thinking about what freelancers can do to improve customer service. Like many other freelancers, I prefer to limit telephone conversations.
Generally speaking, my work requires a certain degree of concentration. I'm the only person in my organization, so I can't delegate taking phone calls to another person. Yet, I don't want my customers to have to go through the same frustrating experience that I did.
So, what's a freelancer to do. Here are several ideas that I thought of:
- Designate a dedicated time when you can usually be reached by phone and publish it. Respond promptly to call during this time.
- Give clients more than one way to contact you. If phone calls are too disruptive, perhaps Instant Messaging would be less distracting.
What about you? Does it frustrate you when you can't reach a human on the telephone? How do you handle phone calls for your work-at-home business.
Leave a comment and let us know.
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I've had major issues with voice mail and doctors specifically the past week or so. It's annoying to say the least when you can't get through even to the receptionist who sets up the appointments, but at least doctors offices are generally good about calling you back. Some specialists can't seem to put forth the effort to call back, so it puts it on the patient to call incessantly.
However, infinitely more annoying than not being able to reach a business or professional on the phone is continually reaching them to find them either on vacation or about to leave for vacation. It seems like some people work for one or two days and then take a month off. Normally I'd say more power to them, but if your business is diagnosing and treating serious if not life threatening health issues, it just seems wrong to be out of the office enough to put patients off for months.
Posted by: Tekaran Lady | May 5, 2008 1:24 PM | Permalink to Comment