Phone Habits Can Make or Break Your Business.

Are your phone habits destroying your business? Have you even considered how important they are?

The other day we wanted some goods. It really was time for us to upgrade and we needed to get it done soon. We phoned for a quote. So far so good, we were answered with good phone habits. The woman on the end of the phone was polite and attentive. Answered our questions succinctly and asked us for enough information to know exactly what we wanted and to set an appointment…Full marks.

A couple of days later and we’re at home looking at samples and doing the measure and quote thing. It was really more about making the proper selection as we were ready to buy. A personable and knowledgeable salesman was doing a great job, until… Until what, you might ask? His bad phone habits set in. Any good salesman would recognise that he has a sale right in front of him. But our man decided he had to take three calls from potential clients. Then he decides he had better ring the office. Not to clarify anything for us, no he needed info for one of his possibilities.

A wise salesperson would have turned his phone off and given his full attention to his new prospective customer.

If all of these potential other sales were more important than giving us his full attention, then guess what? You got it. We decided he could go and pursue his other potential customers. We wanted to talk with someone without bad phone habits. Someone who wouldn’t make us feel like we didn’t matter and those others were far more important. If only he had put his phone on answer service, or at least quickly answer to get back later. Things would have turned out a whole lot better for him – he would have made the sale, a very easy sale at that!

Bad phone habits cost lots of sales every day. Don’t let yourself be a victim.

We still wanted the goods. I remembered a woman I met at a networking event. She was out of our area, but she sold the goods we wanted. We had met a couple of times when I was trying to sell her on our service. We had worked out that she couldn’t see the value in what we had, but I never held that against her. One of the things I did pick up on was that she only seemed to be interested in promoting her own business, not really developing relationships. However her expertise and knowledge in her business area impressed me, so we thought we would give her the chance to sell to us.

I left several messages on both her mobile and landline. OK, I got the message. When she hadn’t bothered to return my calls, I gave her a miss. (I found out later in a chance meeting that she never returned my calls because she assumed I was trying to sell her my service again). What a silly mistake!

Not returning calls is no way to build a great business.

Luckily for us, it was third time, very lucky. We got great service, an excellent price and impeccable phone manners. To top it off, they thanked us for being such great customers and making it so easy for them.

YES indeed, your phone habits can make or break your business.

Ron and Sue