Thursday, May 25, 2006

Want good word of mouth: Just be Convenient

Be convenient. Which phone call would YOU return?

"Hi - umm, this is Steve, I got your business card last week and you said I should call you this week to talk. Maybe I'll call back later.
Thanks."

"Hi, this is Steve Ong, it's 9:30 Monday morning. You and I met last week at the BioFinance seminar. I was the gentleman who went to Queens University as well; you and I also talked about John Daley's career as a golfer. Robert, you had asked me to call you this week about some opportunities with your company. My number is ____ - __________ . I'll be in this morning and out this afternoon. If you do get my voicemail, please leave a good time for you and I'll call you back then. I appreciate the chance to touch base with you Robert, again, it's Steve Ong, my number is ____ - __________. Have a great day."

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Well, you can't return the 1st call 'cos the caller didn't leave a number :-)

That aside, the 1st call is brief (is that what you meant by 'convenient'?) but not assertive enough. The 2nd call seems too long and obsequious. So for me, it's a tough call... maybe neither?

Anonymous said...

Dave here - I get about 30-40 calls a day and have a filter mechanism to weed out and prioritize who I get back to. By convenient, people need to:

- leave a call back number that they speak SLOWLY
- leave a call back number at the end of the message (so I can remember it after I hang up)
- remind me who they are and where we met
- tell me why they are calling

This seems self-evident but only about 20% of people do it.

No one returns your calls? Maybe you are making it too hard for them.