Want to Make More Money? Answer Your Phone.

Don AlleyAll, Business, Staff TrainingLeave a Comment

He who answers the phone gets paid.

My bus broke down. Again 🙁 I am starting to wonder if it would be a better use of my time and money to just buy another 15 passenger van or two in order to transport kids, and use the bus as storage…or satisfy my anger issues and light it on fire. 

And I really didn’t want to pay another $200 to get it towed. Totally over that. Then it dawned on me that, surely there is a company or a person who capitalizes on situations like this and will come to me.

So I googled “commercial bus mechanic roadside assistance” and low and behold, several names popped up. 

I call the first one. No answer.

I call the second one, and a friendly voice answers, quotes me on the price, and he comes to my Ashburn karate school and fixes the bus. Done and done. Literally all in a one hour time frame.

And then it dawned on me….I wonder if the first person I called, who didn’t answer, would have been better. Would they have been cheaper? Provided an even better service? And come to think of it, why didn’t they answer the phone? It was the middle of the day on a weekday, surely they were open, right?

There could have been all sorts of reasons why. They could have been dealing face to face with another customer. They could have been on the phone with another customer. They could have been so busy because they are so awesome that they haven’t been able to figure out how to hire other people to answer the volume of calls!

Or maybe, they were lazy. They didn’t feel like answering. They went to the bathroom. Maybe it’s just one person. Who knows.

3 Ways to Make Sure Your Phone is ALWAYS Answered:

  1. Train your staff on the importance of answering it at all costs. Help them appreciate that when they’re working, it costs money to make that phone ring. The ads you post, the marketing you do, the signage on your building or wherever it is, it all costs. And they need to be reminded regularly so that they feel the urgency that you feel. Are you talking in person to a client and the phone rings? Politely excuse yourself and answer it. It’s that important.
  2. Hire someone to answer the phone. And with that, make sure you put them to work in other areas as well. Delegate some of your responsibilities to them. If you’re not answering the phone, you’re losing money. Get it answered.
  3. Forward your calls. At Super Kicks, we use a Google voice number as our main line, and every full time team member is the recipient of a call. We forward the calls to four different cell phones. So we can be anywhere, and we can all answer it. Does doing your job pull you away from where the phone actually is? Forward them to your cell phone and never miss them again.

All I know is, the person who answered the phone got my money. I needed a solution to a problem, and there were choices, so I just hung up and called the next person. I can’t tell you how many times I have asked a prospective parent inquiring about my martial arts school why they chose us, and they responded with, “Because you were the first person to pick up the phone.”

Hmmm. How many of MY calls go to voicemail? How many of MY calls go unanswered? How many people google “kids Karate classes in Ashburn” or “best preschools in Ashburn“, find us, call us…..and then nothing. And then move on to a competitor.

Gulp.

He who answers the phone gets paid.

Do you have a business? Are the calls always answered? When you are closed, are they forwarded to your cell phone? Do you have a service to answer your calls on the weekends? How about into the evening if you close at 5pm?

What do you currently do to make sure that all your calls are answered, and better yet, answered PROFESSIONALLY by someone who isn’t the lead role?

My staff will hear about this at our next staff meeting. Will yours?

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