consider privacy issues.
by ed mendlowitz
managing an accounting practice, the complete 2-volume set: 202 questions and answers:
q: i try to respond quickly to my clients’ calls and emails, but now they even call me at home. what can i do about this?
more: how to handle referrals with attorneys | audit reports without doing the work? | ask these 10 questions before adding financial services | 10 reasons clients don’t pay
exclusively for pro members. log in here or 2022世界杯足球排名 today.
a: you told me you have an office and also give your clients your cell number to use. you also told me that you carry a smartphone and told your clients you prefer emails and can respond quicker to them. you also told me you get many compliments on your responsiveness.
you also said that you return calls on your home phone at night and on clients’ phones when you are at their offices. this can’t be done. in the old days, this was common, but now caller id engraves every phone number, making it easy just to redial that number by clicking it.
you have to stop returning calls on any phone other than your office or cell phone. if calls are made to your home phone, don’t answer them and let your clients know the next time you speak to them that they should use your cell (or office) number as your main number and not any of the others, especially your home number. you need some downtime and privacy, and the home should be off-limits.
you can also tell clients to call your office during the day and cell after business hours and return calls on the appropriate phone during those hours.
these days, many people send emails or make calls at all hours of the day or night as they think of something – and they make it your responsibility to get back to them. they do not expect immediate responses, but it is their way to get it off their minds.
one of my pet peeves is serial call returners. these are people you play phone tag with and then give a specific time range when you can be reached, and they respond as soon as they get your message even though it is not within that time range. i’ve gotten to the point where i no longer call them back – they were told when to reach me and chose to ignore it by calling me when they knew i was not available. it is inconsiderate and indicates a self-centered lack of respect or an abnormal compulsiveness – either way, not my problem!
2 responses to “when clients call you at home”
erick schermerhorn
i unknowingly had an investment advisor start giving my cell phone number out to mutual clients. the other night a client texted me at 11:37 at night, and a different client at 5:15 the next morning. fortunately i put my cell phone on silent so i didn’t hear either. texting is becoming a serious threat to client relationships. i’ve now created an autoreply message telling anyone not in my favorites to call me at the office.
frank stitely
messenger and text are also a big problem. i got a text from a drunk at 11pm on a saturday who was at a bar with his buddies. one of them told him that he could sell his rental without paying taxes and he texted me about it. cell phones encourage 5 year old level behavior. we sent out a notice to clients that we don’t respond out of business hours and never to text or messenger, because of security concerns. in the notice, i told the story of the drunk at the bar.