In the cherry picking realm and those times when you are busy you get calls for stuff you really don't want or don't have time for. Many times if you do call back you get VM. I'm not one for chasing something I'm not interested in in the first place. Am I wrong for not following up on 2-10 calls per week?
I get calls from zones I don't wish to enter and calls for small peanuts 65 miles away. Sorry I don't want to make a 150 mi round trip to put up a couple of storm doors..not worth it
Maybe I'm getting burned out or too selective. Out of town firm solicits me for a punch list that wasn't finished on a local store that opened. My immediate thought was I'll probably have trouble getting paid.........blew it off
I’d say I return ore calls than the others in
My industry from what I hear. I tell people to leave their info on website if they call
My office phone answering machine. Then I follow up within a few minutes once they email ... Prefer email.
I don’t get any more calls for gutter cleaning since I say right in the message we don’t offer that
I will say, and I'm not real proud of it, when I was really busy and still trying to run jobs and sell jobs and estimate do all that s*** with way too many jobs going I did not return everybody's call. I distinctly remember people calling about houses that needed to be built, boat docks, nice remodels. Never returned the call. It's a pretty good indicator you are both burn out and need to hire people. LOL
I've gotten a good referral through a job I turned down. People are just impressed you call back to tell them it's not your type of work or area or you're too busy.
I've gotten arm-twisted into doing too many jobs I didn't want to do, so I'm sometimes apprehensive. How to say no when you're referred, but the job is unreasonable for some reason (budget expectations for some repairs, as one example) If you neglect over time, it's not likely to be a quickie cheap fix.
I return all calls, if I'm busy I thank them and wish them well. Sometimes they will ask when I will be freed up. It never hurts to be comprehensive.:thumbsup:
One time I was up a ladder, answered my cell phone. I couldn't do the job that the caller wanted, so I told him to google a guy I know, let's call him 'Fred the handyman' I told him the local paper 'Fred' advertises in so he would be able to find him.
The caller then went to Yelp, gave me 1 star!
Faki*g a**h***
I don't call back anymore if I don't need the work or they are a new customer. Too often I find that people are slightly upset that I won't be doing the job, it's like I have to manage their slightly feeling rejected.
Call today. Small repair job. So I call him back. I ask where are you located? It's about an hour away. I say "you have to be more than willing to pay for it". Conversation ended politely but quickly.
I reply to all calls and emails, in particular the project inquiries that come to me through Houzz which is the platform I run my business off of. And it's not just to be polite; speed of response is one of the components of their ranking algorithm so I make it a practice to "down tools" the moment a project inquiry comes in, and I respond literally within a minute (and almost everyone replies "thank you for responding so quickly!"). Still ranked #1 out of 5000 Toronto GC's listed on Houzz so I must be doing something right.
NO!!! I never return phone calls. WHY??? Because I answer my phone and there is no reason to have to call back.
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