How and Why to Limit Phone Calls (to the extent possible)

Does this sound vaguely familiar: You’re in your truck, headed to a jobsite while chatting with your employee via Bluetooth when your phone rings from a potential customer. You put the employee on hold, and take the call. Being already preoccupied with driving and the previous conversation the call is brief and their info somehow gets quickly written on the back of an invoice that was readily available. The customer didn’t get the full attention they deserve, between this and the means of collecting their info you just turned reduced your 50% shot at landing the job in half again. Now that your conversation is over you can get back to directing your employee and making sure the rest of the day goes as planned. The day is done and you finally get home, enjoy some dinner and time with your kids before wrapping up for the night. You also forgot to get ahold of your new lead, who has since reached out to two additional businesses.

There’s got to be a better way: Good news, many better ways indeed exist. Not only are there better ways but far, far simpler ways to boot. One of the biggest things we push here is to simplify your business so you can enjoy this one life we have. Streamlining your leads (and keeping track of them) is among the easiest ways to free up your day so you can focus on what’s truly important: managing your current jobs so they go smoothly and remain profitable. Firstly, you need to stop being the initial contact. I’ve spoken to many business owners and the in various lines of work and one thing is consistent: if you’re good at what you do, meeting with a customer and talking about the work you do is the easiest, most enjoyable conversation you can possibly have. This is what you were born to do, so there’s good reason to focus on this part. Both for your business and for your customer satisfaction. Odds are though, you’re not super “tech-savvy” and that’s totally fine. After all, that’s not the business you’re in. Unless you have a strong desire to learn about the systems that computers and the internet have to offer, you have no reason to do these thing’s yourself.

How do I stop being the first contact? Easy. In fact, super easy. And we’ll go through just a few options here.

1.Encourage emails rather than text messages and phone calls. Emails stay in one place, the inbox they reside in are designed to show you what needs attention, and they don’t rely on memory in order to work right. If a customer calls, simply ask them to email name@exampledomain.com. We’ve seen this work countless times, and the brief explanation telling the customer “this prevents me from writing your info on a napkin and stuffing it under my truck seat” usually gets a good laugh and an immediate email. Now they’re in your system where they won’t be forgotten. 2.Have someone who can answer your phone and ideally, emails too. This can be anyone, your wife, another employee, or preferably us. This is obviously part of what we offer among many other crucial parts of your business. Who you choose matter so long as this person is reliable, fast to respond, and you’re not wasting your valuable brainpower on the very first contact point. You matter when it comes time to LAND the job then ensuring it gets finished on time and on budget. 3.If you want to answer emails yourself, you can setup a nice canned reply to reply instantly l, letting the customer know that you’re on the field from 7am-3pm and generally get to emails before 5pm. This way they know you’ve received their email and you’ll be getting to them as soon as possible. This helps prevent them from getting ahold of your competition. 4.Setup your voice-mail to request an email be sent, and ensure that’s the fastest way for them to get into your system.

Using emails for current customers: This topic is almost taboo, but that’s okay. Bad customers simply do exist and there’s nothing we can do to prevent them entirely. Keeping conversations in email keeps a running record of what gets said. But it also works for the good ones! As stated above, the email inbox puts the newest items on top and appear as unread, so even a quick glance can tell you exactly where your priorities are. Implementing new practices to stay current makes sure that you’re never stuck trying to catch up to the competition. Instead, you set the standard. I’m positive you can run a successful business the old fashioned way, there’s just no need to anymore. It takes considerably more time and effort, which takes away from the rest of your life. If you’re stuck in the old way of doing things, it’s time to stop. To your success, Better Blue Collar