What should I do?

[Timberwerks]

I leave flyers in paper boxes to adverties for firewood and lately I have been getting a fair amount of calls from people who don't leave messages. From the record of the caller id some people have called five or more times but never leave a message. I can't sit by the phone all day and wait for calls. My wife says I should just call the number on the caller id and ask how I can help them. I feel this is awkward for me and the caller but I would hate to miss out on sales. Should I wait it out and try to get to the phone or hope they leave a message? Or should I call the numbers on the caller id and see what they are calling about. I know for sure these are calls coming from areas where I passed out flyyers and not just wrong numbers.

Thanks
Dale

[bitternut]

I guess if I had the time to call them I would do just that. If it was a nuisance for me I wouldn't. Depends on how much time you have and how fast your wood is moving.

[Patty]

The way I see it you have a couple of options. You can give out your cell phone number so you don't have to stay home by the phone all day, and then answer it as the calls come in. Our brick layer used this method, and it worked out pretty well. He carried 2 phones with him, one with his "work" number, and a second one for his private calls.
Another option is to put a message on your home phone to explain that you can't be home all day to take calls (because you are out delivering other peoples wood), but you really appreciate them calling and would they please leave their number so you can call them back, because their business is VERY important to you.

[Paschale]

If I were you, I'd seriously just view one of the calls as a test case.  If one of the calls comes from someone who's calling five or six times, I'd go ahead and give him a call and say to him that you hope he doesn't mind you calling, but that you noticed that he had called six times, and that you were assuming that he was interested in firewood.  The guy might be taken aback a little bit at first, but if he's been trying to get a hold of you five or six times, he's probably been a little miffed when he's called so many times with no answer.  This way, you know you're calling someone who's interested, and if you don't call him, someone else will get his business.  You can maybe get his business, and at the same time view it as a test case for future potential calls like that.  Just my two cents

[DonE911]

I would only call back the numbers that called more than once on the same day.  This will knock out the wrong number problem ...   I have dialed the wrong number before and had the wrong number call me back 5 or 6 times wanting to know who I am and why I called them....   makes me want to call them at 3am and 4am and 4:30am ect.... not from my home phone ofcourse...

I would just say hello the is "john doe firewood service returning a call from earlier today, by chance are you the person that called"....  most folks will be happy to talk to a real person calling them back, but would not leave a message on a machine..  I generally don't talk to machines when I call a business that I have never dealt with before.

[Murf]

Dale, sometimes a small change in your message makes a big difference.

A lot of people don't feel comfortable leaving a message, especially those who are just kicking tire's or shopping.

A few years back I changed the message on my voice-mail, the reaction was unbelievable. I changed it from the "sorry, I'm not here right now...." sort of thing to "You have reached Ted, I'm sorry I'm not available to take your call personally right now but I'm seldom in the office daytime, if you want a call back this evening leave a message, or if it's more urgent than that please feel free to call me on my cell phone at XXXXX, talk to you soon."

It let people know that no matter how many times they call they're still only going to get the machine. I do get a few calls on my cell, but not very many at all. I get probably 3 times the messages I used to though.

People like to know where they stand, that's why they want to talk to a person.

[Furby]

I've been dealing with this type of situation for a while.

My 2 cents:

DON'T call them back off of the caller I.D.!!!
I will NOT give anyone my business who does that to me. I could have left them my # if I wanted them to call me back.
When I call someone, it's at my time frame. I don't wait around or I'm going in and out a lot so I don't bother to leave my #, and just call again when I can.
That leads me to the next point. Like Patty said, get a second cell phone just for "work" calls. If I call someone for a service, I sure as heck am NOT going to play phone tag with them. I understand they have a business to run and may not be able to answer the phone when ever I call, but it should not be that hard to get a hold of them. I know several people that operate this way and have plenty of business, it don't take up too much of thier time and they are easy to get a hold of. If they can't answer when you call, they return the call as soon as possible if you leave a message on thier voice mail. If it's for business, the phone might be a tax write off.

I have had a guy call me back 3 weeks after I left a message on his machine, I was outside and he left a message saying he was just getting through his list. I figure that if it took him that long to get back with me, I'm not even interested in seeing his work.

I've had my current phone # for more then 3 years. I am STILL getting calls from "personal friends" of the last owner of the #. Lots of business calls, and some down right strange calls. Could have gone down and picked up some tires from the shop, for who ever gave them my #. ;D
One guy kept calling 3 times a day. didn't belive me when I told him he had the wrong #. Started calling and just breathing into the phone when he heard my voice, so once I picked up the phone and in as high of pitched voice as I could, I said "hello" and told him he had the wrong # for who he was looking for. He called back a half hour later. :

One other thing, places like autozone that use your # to find your account, can't remove a # and you can give them any # you want. I have someone that gave them mine, and they can't take it off thier system.

[J_T]

I use my caller ID all time  ??? Here any one over the age of 40 won't talk to a voice mail thing no way but they the ones got the cash .Of course the younger bill colectors will talk to any thing. Hey I have talked to a wrong number for an hour before. ;D Every one seems to be wired different when it comes to getting phone calls. Got a buddy that when his machine answers I just Quack like a duck and hang up he always calls me back

[Buzz-sawyer]

Should we allstart callin ya DUCKIE insteadof JT :D :D ;)

[Furby]

No how about "quackers"???   ;)

[J_T]

Don't care what you call me  8) Just call me in time to eat  ;D Taters ok no grits please :

[J_T]

Wife use to call me Freddy The Free Loader as I was always dragging sompthing home :D :D Yuall pardon me a spell  all this talk about food got me hungry . Gonig to ride around an look hungry maybe someone will feed me. ;D

[Cedarman]

I love my caller ID.  The times that we are out and someone calls and does not leave a message, I always call them back. Sure, I call some wrong numbers and just say I was checking my caller ID and saw that they had called and wanted to see if they needed anything.  Many are the times that someone has called and was interested in our cedar, but just did not want to leave a message. Every single one of them expresses thanks that I called them back.  Most of the time it results in a sale.  We both come out ahead.  They get something they need and I get to stay in business a little longer.  The best time to sell something is " when you can".
My attitude is that if they were interested when they called, they will probably be interested when I call back.

[DanG]

I only put my cell number on my cards. That phone goes wherever I go. If I get a call from a number I don't recognize, I just call back and ask if someone wanted to talk to me. Now that the election is over, I expect that method to be more effective. :

[UNCLEBUCK]

I forgot to delete all the calls on the caller I.D. and finally a friend said that it beeped so long they hung up . So I guess people started talking after it just kept beepin. Just my two cents

[DonE911]

All this talk about cell phones got me to think'n about somphin.

Getting my soapbox.....  hold on a minute....  ok here goes.

For those of you that don't know I work in public safety ( 911 )

There is a large part of the population in my neck of the woods that don't have a home ( we call'em hardlines ) phone at all, just a cell phone......   these people love to call 911 and scream that they need help in one form or another and then get po'd that 911 doesn't know where they are....  

Unless you live in Phoenix, 911 can not tell who you are, where you are, and they aint gonna guess...  Phoenix has for some time and a few larger markets now triangulate you position within a coupla hundred yards....  The rest of the country might get your cell phone number, but probably just the service number to the tower your signal bounces off of.

ok... I'm done now... putting the soapbox away....    

The cell phone for business only is a good idea, but no need for 2 different phones... most companies will send a second line into the same phone and you can assign the second line a different ring....  

[DanG]

There was a lot of noise, a couple of years ago, about making all the cell companies comply with a rule that all cellphones must be traceable to their location.  The technology is available, but I think most folks prefer to keep their cellphone bill down, rather than pay for new antennae, redundant towers, new switching equipment, etc.  It is feasable in some of the larger markets, but it's enough of a challenge to get service in the fringe areas, without trying to upgrade the whole country to something we don't really need.

The folks that gripe about the "poor" service are the very same ones that whine about the cost of their service. Some folks just AIN'T gonna be happy.

[Timberwerks]

Thanks for the feedback everyone. I think I will change my voice mail greeting and let people know the best time to call for a person to person call. I'll give some more thought about calling from the caller id list. If someone calls more than twice without a message, I think it would be ok for me to call them back and inquire what the call was in requard to.

Thanks
Dale

[JD350Cmark]

I have call forwarding on my home # after 4 rings it rings  ;Dto my cell.  Originally I did it so that people could leave a message when my power goes out since the answering machine wont work without power.

Then, if I was expecting a call and was not in the house I'd turn the answering machine off and the person calling would automaticlly catch me on my cell.

Recently my answering machine started acting goofy, so now the danG thing will be in the next dump run.  To make a long story slightly longer,  ;D I do not have an answering machine in the house.  I only have one voice mail to check.  I'm not making a living doing sawmill or tractor work, but do some part time work and I think it makes it a little easier for folks to reach me.  My 2 cents...

[etat]

We also keep our home phone forwarded to my wife's cell phone.  We're out so much we'd miss most of our calls if we didn't.  Get LOTS and LOTS of calls from 800 numbers wanting me to buy something, or from fax machines.  My wife mostly never answers the 800 numbers, heck they ain't a gonna want a roof anyways.   Nor does she answer if she knows in advance it's gonna be a fax machine.  Any calls like this she doesn't answer they have a option to leave a message on the cell phone answering machine.  

Me, I NEVER answer my cell phone unless I know it's from my wife, or one of my kids.  If I'm close and it's a customer calling for me I'll take the phone from her and talk to em after she answers, buy mostly I just call em back later, either a few minutes, or later that night.


 I hate phones, and sort of have a phobia about them.  I think part of it comes from back when I couldn't pay my bills and it was mostly bill collectors calling.  Back in 86 I filed bankruptcy on over a hundred thousand in medical bills that insurance would pay cause they had this clause about congenital defects.  I never filed the bankruptcy until my wife had a nervous breakdown.  Also we were trying to hold out until Jeremy had his second heart surgery. We purt near about starved to death for a while, and purt near about lost everything we had, which wasn't much at the time.  I do not, and will never miss those days, nor will I ever remember any days from the 80's as the 'good old days'.  I'll never forget almost getting arrested cause they told me that if we'd quit our jobs and go on welfare the gov. would pay the doctor and hospital bills, otherwise they said we was making too much money which was a dang lie. We was behind on everything and about starving trying to feed our kids.

Sorry for rantin, guess I just got started and couldn't stop.  I feel better now.

[FeltzE]

My full time job will often keep me on the road for several days at a time. My business card has both home and cell number. We havn't used the call forwarding option but have talked about it shooting all the home calls to the cell during the day and keeping the cell with my wife when I'm at work. (I cant take a cell in the building with me) I know of several tree removal guys that use the heck out of call forwarding with great success.

Long story short, we get messages on the home phone, if someone calls several times without a message I use the caller ID to call back and announce that I'm returning a call from Feltz's most likely in reference to sawmilling or lumber. Most of the time I have done this it's recieved well and I find someone who is interested in some information, occasionally find a sale or service request waiting. If it's a repeat customer they chat for a while and usually mention that they assumed I may be out of town.

The hardest thing is finding the right venu for advertising. We lost the ability to advertise in the state agriculture paper which sourced 95% of our customer base.

Eric

[DanG]

As I said, I just give out my cell # to start with, but call forwarding is useful, too. Linda works nights, so is often asleep in the daytime. When she is asleep, we forward the house phone to my cell. She can rest undisturbed without worrying about missing a call.

[Kevin_H.]

I have my cell phone forwarded to an alpha pager, Any time I miss a cell call the pager, on my belt will give a buzz that I can feel while sawing. The next time I stop I know to go check the phone for the message.

Besides that,the pager automaticly updates the weather and sports scores... ;D